Tonight I had the exciting opportunity to attend Jim Sherraden’s lecture on the history and process of Hatch Show Print at the Westin Poinsett Hotel in Greenville, SC. Hatch is a non-profit working museum affiliated with the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. The shop, founded in 1879, has adopted a motto: “Preservation through production”. This historic shop continues to use only the original wood block type in their designs, supplemented here and there with current woodblock or linoleum cut designs. Hatch Show Print does not strive to recreate historic posters that are now rare or completely lost, nor does it search out vintage copies of printed show posters on Ebay or antique outlets. Rather, they are interested in keeping history alive by using the Hatch brothers original hand carved block in today’s context. Originally typesetting traveling tour posters for Grand Ole Opry stars, Hatch’s more recent clientele consists of Pearl Jam, the Beastie Boys, REM, Coldplay, Mylie Cyrus and many other contemporary artists. Currently B.B. King and Willie Nelson are Hatch’s largest clients. Companies such as Pixar and CNN have also commissioned work with Hatch. Below are some images from the evening: the presentation, the beautiful historic Poinsett Hotel, tasty food, posters I secured at the beginning of the evening and my charming companions! (See more Hatch posters.)
Mr. Sherraden stressed that with these prints the Designer is the Printer and the Printer is the Designer.
If you can't make it to Nashville, then catch the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition.
