Members-only Live Event: Paul Gehl on Chicago Modernism and the Ludlow Typograph

September Evening Program

Presented by the Caxton Club and Chicago Art Deco Society

Paul F. Gehl

Please join us to celebrate Caxtonian Paul Gehl’s new book, Chicago Modernism and the Ludlow Typograph: Douglas C. McMurtrie and Robert Hunter Middleton at Work 

The lavishly illustrated book documents the improbable collaboration between the brash McMurtrie and his soft-spoken colleague at Ludlow, Robert Middleton. While McMurtrie built a nationwide speaking career espousing typographic modernism, the greatest Chicago practitioner of letterforms modernism was Middleton. Middleton did the exquisite type drawings in house and supervised production. McMurtrie was the promotional man extraordinary. The typefaces they made and sold put Ludlow on the map internationally as a creator, not just a manufacturer in the design world.

Paul F. Gehl is Curator Emeritus at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He retired in 2016 after 30 years as Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation, the Newberry’s special collection on history of printing, calligraphy, and the book. He is an historian (Ph.D. Chicago 1976) who has published on textbook history, Chicago calligraphy and design, and the history of the book trade.

Buy the book

for $39 including a bookplate signed by the author, tax, and shipping.

Special offer:  Add RHM: Robert Hunter Middleton, the Man and His Letters for $10.

Live attendance limited to Chicago Art Deco Society and Caxton Club members and one guest only. Social Hour 5:30pm with wine, bottled water, and light appetizers. Registration is mandatory and prepayment is required by September 11. Cost: $15.00 per person. NOTE: Masks must be worn indoors.