Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. facts for kids

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is an American printer, book artist and papermaker best known for social and political commentary, particularly in printed posters. One critic noted that Kennedy was "...unafraid of asking uncomfortable questions about race and artistic pretension."

Biography

From an early age, Kennedy was interested in letters and books and studied calligraphy for several years. At the age of 40, Kennedy visited Colonial Williamsburg, a Virginia living history museum, and was mesmerized by an 18th-century print shop and book bindery demonstration. The incident so influenced that he studied printing at a community-based letterpress shop in Chicago and, within a year quit his AT&T systems analyst job, which he had held for nearly two decades, to continue printmaking studies.

Kennedy articulated his fascination with letterpress printing in one interview: "... I believe it was the capability of making multiples. Multiples of text are important to me. They allow for distribution."

He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studied under legendary book designer Walter Hamady, and earned an MFA in 1997. He later taught graphic design at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University. His letterpress poster shop, Kennedy Prints, is located in Detroit, Michigan.

Technique

Kennedy teaching a letterpress printing workshop at Washington University in St. Louis during the 2011 SGC International conference

Kennedy creates prints, posters and postcards from handset wood and metal type, oil-based inks, and eco-friendly and affordable chipboard. Many of the posters are inspired by proverbs, sayings, and quotes Kennedy locates or potential clients provide.

Using hand presses, he "produces large editions of wildly colourful, typographically-driven posters on inexpensive chipboard stock, posters which are often so riotously layered with vibrant colours of ink as to retain a wet iridescence and tackiness years after they were printed. His working method often involves overprinting multiple layers of text ...resulting in no two prints being truly identical."

Residencies, Exhibitions, and Awards

Kennedy has been hosted as an artist-in-residence at a number of institutions, including the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Virginia Center for the Book at the University of Virginia, BookLab at the University of Maryland, and the Wells College Book Arts Center, among many others.

His work has been exhibited at a range of museums, galleries, and libraries, including the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art Library, the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Indiana University Bloomington Fine Arts Library. In addition, his work is held in the permanent collections of the Poster House, the New York Center for Book Arts, and the Letterform Archive.

In 2015, Kennedy was honored as a United States Artists Glasgow Fellow in Crafts and received a $50,000 unrestricted prize. He was named the Individual Laureate by the American Printing History Association in 2021, and the Outstanding Printmaker Awardee from the Mid Atlantic Print Council in 2022.

Archival Collections

Letterpress posters by Amos Paul Kennedy Jr.

• Amos Kenney Print Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. Collection of posters and prints cover social subjects of Civil Rights, presidential campaigns, voting, performing arts (music, film, theater), art, books, handcrafts etc. 286 items.
• Kennedy & Sons Collection, Emory University, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Atlanta, GA. Collection from Kennedy & Sons, Fine Printers (African American commercial printing business), 1990–2015, 6.5 linear ft. (11 boxes) and oversized papers.
• Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. collection Printers, UC Santa Barbara Library, Special Collection, Santa Barbara, CA. Letterpress posters, broadsides, postcards, fans, publications and clippings, 1997–2013, 50.62 linear feet.
• Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. collection, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. Letterpress prints including posters, business cards, broadsides, fans, and maps as well as publications and clippings, 2000–2019, 17 boxes.
• Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. ephemera collection, Modern Manuscripts and Archives, the Newberry Library. Letterpress posters, paper fans, broadsides, greetings cards, and other ephemera dating from 1990 through approximately 2012. 2.7 linear feet, 2 boxes.