Interview with Harry Duncan, April 12, 1981

Partial Transcript: Um, let me just tell you briefly what this--what my object is.

Segment Synopsis: Duncan talks about his personal relationship with Hammer and Tate, his own memories of them, and their differing views on tradition and America.

Keywords: Allen Tate; Art; Artists; Kentucky writers; Victor Hammer; WW2; WWII; World War 2; World War II; World War Two

Subjects: Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor, 1882-1967; Literature.; Poetry.; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979.; Typography.; World War, 1939-1945

Partial Transcript: But, but everything he did, including his act, I think, leaving Vienna, uh, as--when he realized it was gonna be taken over by the Nazis...

Segment Synopsis: Duncan tells the story of Hammer and Hammer's wife's fleeing Vienna during the Nazi takeover, and uses this "heroic" act to contrast this steadiness with Allen Tate's "rootlessness."

Keywords: Allen Tate; Nazism; Poetry; Typography; Victor Hammer; WW2; WWII; World War 2; World War II; World War Two

Subjects: Gill, Eric, 1882-1940.; Hammer, Victor; Poetry; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979; Typography; World War, 1939-1945

Partial Transcript: Although, certainly Allen Tate was one of our most, uh, idiosyncratic individuals, too, but in a completely different way from Victor [Hammer].

Segment Synopsis: Duncan discusses Hammer's calm industriousness and Earthiness versus Tate's turbulent and heady genius, and the possible psychological basis for their respective personalities.

Keywords: Allen Tate; Kentucky writers; Literature; Typography; Victor Hammer

Subjects: Art.; Hammer, Victor; Literature.; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979; Typography.

Partial Transcript: That's an interesting point, I want to think about it a minute.

Segment Synopsis: Duncan talks a bit about his conversion to Catholicism with respect to Allen Tate. He talks about how setting in typeface some of Tate's poetry, which he initially didn't particularly like, changed his view of that poetry, and enlightened him to the importance of typography to poetry. This discussion of the intellectualism of Tate's poetry and thus intelligence, leads to a discussion of Tate's intellectual submission to the Catholic Church as an act of faith, influencing Duncan's own conversion.

Keywords: Allen Tate; Catholicism; Christianity; Kentucky writers; Literature; Paul Williams; Poetry; Typography; Victor Hammer

Subjects: Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Literature.; Poetry.; Religion; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979; Typography.; Williams, Paul

Partial Transcript: Allen was helpless with his hands.

Segment Synopsis: Duncan tells of his first meeting with Hammer, his awe of Hammer's sheer technical skill, and Hammer's role in the revival of hand pressing as part of the World War II-era movement of European masters to America.

Keywords: Allen Tate; Kentucky writers; Literature; Poetry; Typography; Victor Hammer; WW2; WWII; World War 2; World War II; World War Two

Subjects: Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Literature.; Poetry.; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979; Typography.; World War, 1939-1945

Partial Transcript: He wanted very much to share it.

Segment Synopsis: Hammer, according to Duncan, viewed the master-apprentice model as the only form of teaching for that craft, bestowing upon his students not just technical skill, "but a way of life." He also talks of the correspondence between Hammer's physical movement and existence and his views on art, and contrasts this with Allen Tate's own physical presence.

Keywords: Allen Tate; Art; Kentucky writers; Literature; Poetry; Typography; Victor Hammer

Subjects: Art.; Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Literature.; Poetry.; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979; Typography.

Partial Transcript: Paul Williams, my partner, was a, an illustrator, who was an American in the Allen Tate way; an uprooted American, like me, too.

Segment Synopsis: Duncan tells of his partner Paul Williams' talent at making woodcut illustrations, and Hammer's negative view of those illustrations while admiring the apparent technical skill.

Keywords: Allen Tate; Art; Illustration; Paul Williams; Typography; Victor Hammer; Wood-carving; Woodcutting

Subjects: Art.; Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979; Typography.; Williams, Paul; Wood-carving.

Partial Transcript: Did you know of him, uh, expressing any admiration for artists--contemporary artists?

Segment Synopsis: Duncan discusses the extent of Hammer's admiration for certain then-contemporary artists, as well as his love for literature and how that tied into his work in typesetting.

Keywords: Art; Friedrich Hölderlin; Literature; Rudolf Koch; Tapestries; Tapestry; Typography; Victor Hammer

Subjects: Art.; Duncan, Harry; Gerstl, Richard, 1883-1908; Hammer, Victor; Hölderlin, Friedrich, 1770-1843.; Koch, Rudolf, 1856-1921; Literature.; Tapestry.; Typography.

Partial Transcript: On the subject of the Hölderlin, you, you spoke a few minutes ago about your great admiration for the work.

Segment Synopsis: Duncan discusses a collection of Friedrich Hölderlin's poetry which Hammer typeset, and his great admiration for it. He also discusses some perceived difficulties of reading the American Uncial font it's printed in.

Keywords: American Uncial; Andromache; Friedrich Hölderlin; Victor Hammer

Subjects: Art.; Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Hölderlin, Friedrich, 1770-1843.; Typography.

Partial Transcript: Um, I'm interested in your remark about the--about Hammer's frontispiece portrait in Herdelin.

Segment Synopsis: Duncan gives his interpretation of Hammer's art outside of illustration and type-cutting. He sees the portraits as stiff and highly realistic, almost Renaissance-like, but without indulging in linear perspective.

Keywords: Art; Typography; Victor Hammer

Subjects: Art.; Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Typography.

Partial Transcript: I admire, and feel, that in the later work, the woodcuts of the four evangelists that Victor did for instance, uh, that there was some breaking of this, what I think of as his stubborn peasant tradition.

Segment Synopsis: Duncan speaks more on the typesetting and printing of Hammer's Hölderlin edition and how he did it.

Keywords: Art; Friedrich Hölderlin; Literature; Typography; Victor Hammer; Wood-carving; Woodcutting

Subjects: Art.; Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Hölderlin, Friedrich, 1770-1843.; Literature.; Typography.

Partial Transcript: Uh, how much did you see then of, of Hammer through the years?

Segment Synopsis: Duncan discusses his and Hammer's lives after the latter left Wells College, Duncan's life at Covington, Hammer's in Lexington, and when Duncan visited Hammer at his home in Lexington.

Keywords: Allen Tate; Art; Typography; Victor Hammer

Subjects: Art.; Duncan, Harry; Hammer, Victor; Tate, Allen, 1899-1979; Typography.