[MGSA-L] Collector preserves family history at typography museum

June Samaras june.samaras at gmail.com
Mon Jun 20 21:24:05 PDT 2016


LIFE 21.06.2016 : 00:53
Collector preserves family history at typography museum
IOTA MYRTSIOTI

[Use link to see pictures]

http://www.ekathimerini.com/209670/article/ekathimerini/life/collector-preserves-family-history-at-typography-museum

Schoolteacher Asterios D. Gousios did everything in his powers to keep
education standards for his pupils high during what were turbulent times in
the Macedonia region in the early 1900s.

He taught, he wrote books, which were printed in Leipzig (1894) and Athens
(1901), and he opened the first bookstore in Serres, northern Greece. The
store soon became a hub for teachers, priests and national activists in the
Macedonian Struggle. Gousios also launched his own printing company (1908),
one of the first to appear in eastern Macedonia. The artistic excellence of
the Serres-based business’s output was advertised in the very first issue
of Makedonia newspaper on August 10, 1911.

In 1916, the bookstore and the printing house were both destroyed by the
Bulgarian Comitadjis, the irregulars who sallied from hiding places in the
mountains to terrorize villages in the area. The teacher and his son,
Christos, were both caught during the raid.

Following their release, the business was brought back into operation
(1918). Five years later, the family opened a second in the heart of the
city’s commercial center.

Many of the stories that unfolded in Thessaloniki at the time passed into
print at the Gousios company. But if they have survived to this day, that
is thanks to Asterios Gousios, an heir and collector. Spread across an area
of 400 square meters inside the contemporary press house in the Oreokastro
area of Thessaloniki, this informal museum showcases items that he has
collected over the past few years. Visitors will find information on the
family printing tradition as well as the historical evolution of typography
from the late 19th century to the present.

The core of the collection is made up of collectibles salvaged from the
family business, including a 1909 electric flatbed printing press made in
Austria-Hungary.

“This is what the Thessaloniki press started with in 1923, and it may be
the only one to survive in the city today,” said Gousios, the collector,
who followed in his father’s footsteps after studying typography in Leipzig.

The permanent exhibition is a revelation. Those big, carefully polished
machines are literally on standby for those who still wish to print in the
old way. A Boston manual printing press made at the beginning of the 19th
century, a 1880 Krause paper cutter, a linotype machine from the 1960s,
lithographic plates, English-made paging machines, a press and tools for
bookbinding (1920-50) are all exhibited in the same room next to a display
on modern offset and digital printing.

“This machine saved our family,” the collector said, pointing to a pre-war
press which was used to number cloth labels for tobacco products for
export. “During the [German] occupation tobacco traders worked nonstop.
Almost all of them were our customers,” Gousios said. “After the Second
World War was declared, my father, worried about a shortage in raw
materials, purchased 2,000 gold sovereigns’ worth of cloth. He stored it in
a tobacco shop on Frangon Street, but two days later it was gone. It had
been stolen,” he said.

The history of Greek typography is also a history of business ventures:
Showcased are matrices with logos, greeting cards, invitations, cloth
labels for tobacco products, haircut vouchers, ballot papers, party
manifestos, price lists, envelopes and letters, paper serving trays for
cakes – the taste of a multicultural Thessaloniki when great graphic
artists, including Ioannis Svoronos, elevated the art to a whole new level.

Also on display are about 800 boxes with rare metal typefaces produced by
Deberny in a French factory that would later go bankrupt. The factory was
later bought by French novelist and writer Honore de Balzac so he could
print his books.

-------------------------------------
June Samaras
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com
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