Constellation Similarity Assertions

For John Anderson (born 1915), book designer, typographer and printer, a love of fine printing developed early. Inspired by the printing activities of the Wright Brothers, Anderson acquired a small hand press at the age of thirteen. Since that modest beginning, Anderson has established himself among the foremost of small press proprietors continuing the tradition of handset type. Over the course of his six-decade career, Anderson has printed numerous books, broadsides, and catalogues as well as myriad invitations, keepsakes, advertisements, announcements, and other ephemera. The consistent high quality and clean design of Anderson’s work have garnered him both awards and praise among printing circles and a high reputation with clients.

Anderson embarked on his first commercial enterprise in 1934 at the age of 19, when he founded Bantam Press in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He soon realized, however, that his enthusiasm for printing outstripped his experience, and in 1936 accepted a two- year apprenticeship with Peter Beilenson of Peter Pauper Press and the Walpole Printing Office in Mt. Vernon, New York. Anderson further developed his skills at a number of Philadelphia-area businesses, including Royal Typographers of Philadelphia, Sharp & Dohme, Westcott & Thomson, and Lanston Monotype Machine Company. During this period, in 1946, Anderson founded Pickering Press, the imprint under which he continued to print throughout his career, which he named for the nineteenth-century printer, William Pickering.

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