Description: Pictured is artist Dard Hunter's watermark, used as a paper specimen of a modern watermark in his book "Old Papermaking" (Chillicothe, Ohio: 1923). A watermark is a design embossed into a piece of paper during its production that is used to identify the paper and its maker. A watermark can be seen when the paper is held up to light.
Born William Joseph Hunter (1883-1966) in Steubenville, Ohio, Dard Hunter was a notable printer and papermaker. His father, William Henry Hunter, ran a newspaper business. The elder Hunter was an advocate of hand crafts and also an amateur woodcarver. Dard (a family nickname) learned typesetting at his father's business and the mechanics of papermaking at a paper mill near his home. In 1900 the Hunter family moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, to run another newspaper, and Dard was its staff artist.
In 1904 he moved to East Aurora, New York, to join the Roycrofters, a community of craft workers and artists that was a branch of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the United States. Hunter created designs for books, leather, glass, and metal, and also tried his hand at pottery, jewelry, and furniture. He founded a correspondence school, the Dard Hunter School of Handicrafts. In 1910 he moved to Vienna, where he took courses in lithography, book decoration, and letter design. Afterward he settled in London, where he developed a fascination for papermaking.
In 1912 Hunter and his wife, Edith, moved to Marlborough, New York, where he designed and built a water-powered paper mill and designed a distinctive font that bears his name. In 1919 Hunter and his family returned to Chillicothe, where he worked and lived for the rest of this life. He founded Mountain House Press, a letterpress printing studio where he wrote and published 20 books on papermaking.
View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL05960
Subjects: Hunter, William Joseph, 1883-1966; Roycroft Shop; Mountain House Press; Arts and crafts movement; Cultural Ohio--Art and Artists; Chillicothe (Ohio);
Places: Chillicothe (Ohio); Ross County (Ohio)