BOOK ART // remembering artist Walter SH Hamady

Shortly after I moved back to Iowa in 1990, I began to correspond with a prominent letterpress book artist, paper-maker, collagist, and assemblagist named Walter Hamady (1940-2019), who was well-known as a teacher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 

Having earlier taught in Milwaukee for ten years, I became aware of Hamady's work in the 1970s. Because of his liking for Ballast Quarterly Review (which I had founded in 1985), he and I began to exchange spirited letters (along with a mix of enclosures) once or twice or more a month. This led to collaborations of one kind or another, eventually resulting in exhibitions, published essays, and an archive of his artist’s books. I saved everything, even all the envelopes and mailing containers, in part because they were always addressed to mutilations of my name, such as Corps du Roy, Rhoidamoto, Trompe L’Roi at Labbast, Royatolla, and so on. This continued for more than a decade, no doubt to the postman’s amusement (I hope).

Among my favorite of Walter’s hijinks was the occasion on which, in the process of publishing one of his 131 handmade artist’s books, he turned a copy of my book on Art and Camouflage into confetti, combined that with paper pulp, and "camouflaged" my book in one of his own.

While looking back on what I have, I recently produced a twenty-minute video talk (a brief memoir-like tribute) titled BOOK ART: Walter Hamady’s Books, Collages and Assemblages, which can be accessed free online on my YouTube channel.

Camoufleur John Wilde in Walter SH Hamady's books

Above Page spread from Reeve Lindberg, John's Apples (Perishable Press, 1995), a Walter Hamady letterpress book, with full-color paintings of apples by John Wilde [WILL-dee].

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John Wilde: Recent Work, April 10-May 3, 2003. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2003, p. 4—

His [Wilde’s] art interests developed early, as he recalled in 1986: “I have always loved to draw and paint ever since junior high school in Milwaukee. I was particularly fond of drawing imaginary cities, which I then erased and re-created.” In 1938 Wilde enrolled in the art department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied human anatomy with Roland Stebbins and drawing with American Scene painter James Watrous. Shortly after he graduated, in 1942, Wilde was drafted into the army and served four years drawing camouflage and modeling terrain maps for various units (including the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS [precursor to the CIA]), while also meticulously detailing his disgust and dismay with wartime in a 275-page sketchbook. 

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Below Page spread from Walter Hamady and John Wilde, A Hamady Wilde Sampler / Salutations 1995 (Perishable Press, 2001), including a self-portrait drawing by Wilde, presumably painting an apple. And below that, Roy R. Behrens, Mon Dieu. Collage in open-book form (1993). Hamady Collection.

Roy R. Behrens (1993)