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Foreword
ome years ago my good friend Jason Brown brought me a bold letterpress poster from the USA full of text, imagery, and colour. At the bottom were the words ‘Hatch Show Print’, an unassuming legend that rests at the foot of thousands of important examples of American graphic design. Jason recently moved from London to Nashville and when I visited him there he was eager to take me to Hatch Show Print’s workshop and store nestled amongst the Honky Tonk music bars on Lower Broadway. Stepping into this barn-like old space was a visceral experience of sights, sounds, and smells; the sense of history, hard work, and creativity was palpable. The walls were covered in stunning prints and I was a veritable kid in a sweet shop.
of ups and downs, changes of ownership, and shifts in fashion, taste, and technology, not least during the digital revolution. It is widely acknowledged that Hatch’s success in the last thirty years has been down to the energies of artist, master printer, and Hatch manager, Jim Sherraden. Whilst archiving Hatch’s woodblocks and type, Jim began to reprint (or ‘restrike’) some of the historic posters, steadily developing a market for heritage prints and attracting new commissions. The business is booming once more and has just moved into the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum who now own and operate Hatch under Jim’s management. During this move he has been impossibly busy but still found time to be supportive and encouraging, even going so far as to design a Hatch print especially for our show, lending us some of
As a result of that visit I invited Jason Brown to co-curate this exhibition with me, he is knowledgeable and generous and I was grateful for an opportunity to add a new dimension to our trans-Atlantic correspondence. This show would not have been possible without his support and enthusiasm.
his own monoprint artworks, and writing an exceptional text for this publication. We are very grateful to Jim Sherraden for this rare European opportunity to view material from one of the world’s greatest producers of letterpress design and it is an honour to welcome him to the UK.
Hatch Show Print was founded in 1879, the name is no-nonsense and logical as Hatch is the family name of a dynasty of printers who produced advertising posters, gaining a particular reputation for their eye catching designs for the burgeoning business of cinema, theatre, travelling shows, sports, and music concerts (the word ‘Show’ was added to the company name in 1920). The firm has survived for over a century seeing its fair share
This exhibition explores the importance of the art of the poster in the history of communication. Established in a world before TV advertising and the internet, Hatch Show Print used strong design to convey information to the widest possible audience - visually calling out across the American landscape. Donald Smith, Director, CHELSEA Space. 5
eptember 21, 2013 6 p.m. a most unusual saturday evening here at hatch show print, in our home for the last twenty one years. the floorboards are silent and the presses are still as we wait for monday morning movers to carry our type, our blocks, and our presses to our new home across broadway, two hundred yards away, in the expanded facility at country music hall of fame. outside the front windows the crowds ramble down broadway like a carnival midway. taylor swift is in town, and, it’s a weekend night in nashville, tennessee. someone is taking a picture through our glass door as this is being written, even though the neon sign is gone from the storefront, getting a little polish before it’s rehung at the new place. there’s nothing out there to say “this is hatch show print.” huey the cat is sleeping in a box under the green table and in a few short days the building will be as hollow as it was when we first turned on the lights in here in 1992. 6
i was the guy that turned on those lights that late winter morning, as i have been doing since 1984. so this is the second time i’ve moved hatch. and it’s the sixth time this shop has changed its address. hatch show print first opened its doors in 1879, the same year edison invented the lightbulb. nashville had already earned a reputation as a printing and publishing center of the southern universe, and, by the turn of the century brothers charles and herbert hatch had entered the poster business. posters by the hundreds, the thousands, the millions, if you count them up from today
going all the way back 134 years. the design was a combination of hand set wood and
the movie poster or the country music poster was printed and packed up and picked up by
metal type and hand cut woodblocks, the largest size being 26 inches by 40 inches, a one sheet, (or, a british quad) often glued together to make a billboard. they were reliable and colorful advertisers for the circus and the carnival, the vaudeville and the minstrel shows. bold and as simple as the serenity of the south, they were designed to get you off the tractor, out of the cotton field, out of the coal mine or the kitchen and into that waterproof tent! the blocks were carved once and were carved well so they could be used year after year, town after town, with the ancillary information being typeset for the specific local show.
hank williams, the rolling stones, bill monroe, lou thesz or someone whose voice has been forgotten long ago.
this was business as usual til after world war two, when transportation costs, televison, and rock ‘n roll, killed most of these shows. think about it. if your parents have been dragging you to bisbee’s comedians on the south side of tullahoma for the last fifteen years and this year someone named presley is playing the north side of town, where you gonna spend your three dollars? north side of town, of course. so, all those woodblocks for all those circus and carnival and vaudeville and minstrel shows were immediately deemed obsolete and were packed on the shelves while the poster changed to something more photograph oriented, and smaller, and all the information being printed from movable wood and metal type. the poster was still meant to tell you or sell you something, but the era of the one sheets was gone and those blocks began their decades long slumber on the shelves of the shop, watching from the walls while the wrestling poster or the bluegrass poster or the rock ‘n roll poster or
by the mid nineteen eighties hatch was gurgling blood instead of spilling ink. the doors were all but closed. it was sold to a corporation well anchored in the country music industry. that corporation in turn called the nonprofit country music hall of fame and suggested that, for the next ten years, the parts of the shop that weren’t relocated to a theme park and still remained in the 1923 building, be archived and printed. as the last “hatch manager”, i was given that responsibility. i kept a bucket under the leaks and made sure the windows were closed and the door got locked and i just printed and printed for three years, doing some current work for local clubs, sensing that, as downtown was poised for rehabilitation and a new era of tourism, hatch show print would have to proof its value, literally, if it was going to take up real estate in a changing city. the answer came from two most unlikely sources. the invention of the compact disc and the invention of digital typography. once the cd was invented, all the vaults on music row opened and record companies sorted through what they could rerelease on this new format. they were all country music entertainers and they contacted hatch to do the “long box” design. this work paid ten times more than a run of a hundred posters. next thing you know the ad agencies were calling because hatch was “the antithesis of digital design”, and we typeset jack daniels’ ads worldwide, and this paid twenty times more than a hundred 7
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Top: ‘Animals’ Below: ‘Bill Monroe’. Two original monoprints by Jim Sherraden
posters. good thing too, cause the building hatch had occupied since 1923 was slated for demolition so we moved onto broadway, and poured ourselves like a cup of sugar into an old furniture building right around the corner. what’s happened next is what is still happening today, over twenty years later. we were asked to print and “design” posters to be given to bands as a commemorative or celebratory item, or something sold at the show as a collectible. within five years the hatch poster ceased becoming a functioning advertising vehicle, as was stated earlier, something to “tell you or sell you something”. the renovation of nashville’s version of carnegie hall, the ryman auditorium, didn’t hurt any since everyone from springsteen to r.e.m. played there and hatch does the poster for every one of them.
our mantra is “preservation through production”. the shop is responsible for over six hundred jobs a year, printed in quantity. the printer is the designer and the designer is the printer. our largest single customer is b.b. king, with willie nelson not far behind, and, for the summer of 2013, mumford and sons on tour provided us with our longest poster run. hatch show print is safe. it’s being run by talented people who have their college degrees in design and their street degrees in passion and hard work and satisfaction because at the end of the day they wash ink off their hands. they have packed up every last piece of wood type with love and have carefully shrink wrapped every woodblock for its coast around the corner. by the time this is read we will be up and running in our new home. by the time you show it to a friend we’ll have your posters ready for you to pick up. on behalf of all of us at hatch, thank you for enjoying our work. we’re proud to be in this show. jim sherraden, hatch show print 9
“The Americana Music Association is honored to have an ongoing relationship with Jim Sherraden and his team at Hatch Show Print. For more than a decade, they have created posters for our annual Honors & Awards ceremony and other special events we curate throughout the year. Their dedication to a traditional art form is an analogy for what Americana represents. The iconography and letterpress design in the posters Hatch create project a distinctive image. Much like Americana music, where you know it when you hear it, you know a Hatch Show Print when you see it.� Jed Hilly, Executive Director, Americana Music Association
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Hatch Show Print is as much a part of Nashville’s history as country music and twangy guitars. You simply can’t have one without the other. Paul Polycarpou, Nashville Arts Magazine
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When I opened Gruhn Guitars in January, 1970 at 111 4th Ave. N in Nashville, Tennessee, we were located right across the street from the venerable Hatch Show Print company which had been in business since 1879. They were making artistic advertising posters using the old wood blocks and presses dating from turn-of-the-century through the 1940’s as well as some technology dating from the 1950’s. Visiting Hatch was a delightful experience akin to stepping into a fabulous time machine.
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Since that time Hatch moved around the corner to Broadway between Third and Fourth Avenue and has recently moved to their new location in the Country Music Hall of Fame, but throughout all of this they have maintained their historic character and integrity. Hatch Show Print is a great place to visit and their posters are iconic works of art which stand the test of time.
George Gruhn, Gruhn Guitars
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When you look at a poster by Hatch Show Print, you see, among other things, guitars, microphones, roses, suns, stars, bucking broncos, food, hearts, cowboy boots, birds, pin ups and images of Elvis, Johnny Cash and Bill Monroe. These are artworks of extraordinary letterpress beauty as well as a walk through the musical and cultural history of the last century and a half. I couldn’t be more proud to have a few of my own.
Mary Chapin Carpenter
I have kept all my Hatch Show Print music posters from years past. The walls of my house are covered with framed Hatch Show Print posters....... A true iconic American art form!
Lucinda Williams
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What Jim Sherraden has done for and with Hatch is monumental. A master of all forms of printing, Sherraden took it upon himself to save something so historical from the trash heap back in the 70’s, and turn it around to make letter press printing a viable and collectable art form. Hatch also did an early poster for our first headlining show at the newly restored Ryman Auditorium. Rock on Hatch Show Print! Raul Malo The Mavericks
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It was 1994 and our band had been playing at Robert’s Western World - or the Rhinestone as it was called then - for a few months and people were starting to show up regularly. One of the them was a truck driver who gave us $50 to make a poster to advertise our Wednesday Saturday performances. We had to have a name quick - we didn’t have one then - so after a late night trip to the alley, we came up with a name that made us all laugh - BR5-49. You know from Hee Haw. Anyway, we went down to Hatch Show Print to have a poster made. The guys at the shop asked “What’s the name of your band?” When we told them, all three busted out laughing. We knew we were in good hands. And then there was an argument over where the hyphen went. That’s how I met Jim Sherraden and started a long relationship with the operation at Hatch. You simply don’t get that look anyplace else. Plus the folks down there know how to take care of a national treasure. Thanks Jim and Hatch. Here’s to many more years of the rare peaceful marriage of art and commerce! Chuck Mead
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Hatch Show Print Nashville Calling Published to coincide with the exhibition Hatch Show Print: Nashville Calling curated by Donald Smith with Jason Brown CHELSEA space, London, 13.11.2013 – 14.12.2013 All images © Hatch Show Print Main text © Jim Sherraden Foreword © Donald Smith Back cover photograph: Jason Brown A very special thanks to Jim Sherraden. This show would not have been possible without the generous support of Jason Brown, thanks also to: The Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, Chelsea Arts Club Trust, Falcon Driscoll & Richard Elliot, Patrick Humphries, David Nicholson, Ned Luberecki, Stephen Mougin, Nashville Convention & Visitors Corporation and Everyone at Hatch Show Print. Director of Exhibitions: Donald Smith Programme Coordinator: Karen Di Franco Technical: Mike Iveson Website: Shoko Maeda Media Co-ordinator: Sinead Bligh Chelsea Arts Club Trust Research Fellow: Daisy McMullan Published by CHELSEA space ISBN: 978-1-906203-73-3 No reproduction in any form is allowed without the express consent of the publishers. Design and layout by Nigel Bents and Alex Howell Printed in the UK CHELSEA space 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU Director: Donald Smith info@chelseaspace.org www.chelseaspace.org
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CHELSEA Space