John Fass: Book Arts and Photography

New York City at Night

Photography by John Fass

 

 
Above:  The Brass Rail Restaurant

The bright lights of New York City provided a red-hot glow for John Fass' photography of Manhattan nightlife. John used his camera to record the city's neon nights in the 1940s and 50s.

Several of these photos reveal John's preoccupation with typography and lettering, such as his photographs of the Brass Rail Restaurant (Art Deco typography in neon) and the Metropole Cafe (wood-type typography in neon).

 

Above: Metropole Cafe
 

Above: On the town
 

Above: "Long Day's Journey into Night" by Eugene O'Neill at the Helen Hays Theater circa 1956

Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece is "Long Day's Journey into Night." The play's Broadway premier was in November 1956, at the Helen Hayes Theater. The following year O'Neill received the Pulitzer Prize for this work. Hopefully John actually attended this production, and did not settle for just photographing the marquee.

 

Above:  Pizza and burgers downtown

 

Above:  Baubles on bags uptown

 

 
Above: Atlas statue at Rockefeller Center

 

 

Hammer Creek Turtles

Photography by John Fass

 

 

John Fass selected the slow-but-sure turtle as his pressmark logo for his Hammer Creek Press, which he operated out of his room at the Bronx YMCA.

The turtle symbolized John's craftsman creed for this press which was the Latin motto "Festina Lenta", Make Haste Slowly. John lived up to his motto, and created books and other printed works with slow and deliberate attention to detail.

The turtle also represented the slow pace of life in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where John was born and raised.

So John collected turtle objects of art, and photographed them for his archive. Every turtle was a good turtle.

  

 
 
 
 

The Hammer Creek near Lititz, PA

Photography by John Fass

 

 
Above: John's brother-in-law Clarence Wert, along the Hammer Creek.
(Clarence was a printer at the Lancaster Press, and was married to John's sister Esther.)

 

 
Lancaster County was a muse to John Fass' creativity, and the Hammer Creek was a symbol of that inspiration.

John Fass named his private press the Hammer Creek Press, for this stream that flowed near his home town.  His Hammer Creek pressmark was a turtle, symbolizing slow and deliberate craftsmanship. The Hammer Creek represented life in the slow lane, far from the fast pace of life in Manhattan.

 

 

Above:  Covered Bridge over the Hammer Creek

  
Above:  Stone arches at a mill along the Hammer Creek

This mill and the covered bridge, above, were featured as wood engravings in  John Fass' 1956 book A Primer of Life Along the Hammer Creek.  The engravings were by John's friend John DePol.

 

Above:  John Fass perched above the Hammer Creek

 

Black and White Photographs of the Hammer Creek by John Fass circa 1951:

 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
  

 
 
 
 

 

 
 

1940s New York Sidewalk Art

Photography by John Fass

 

 
John Fass was a commercial artist, with a penchant for typography, photography, and fine-press publishing. In 1922 John's colleague (and competitor) William Addision Dwiggins first coined the phrase "graphic designer", for someone with a career in commercial art.

John had a finely-tuned appreciation of fine design and craftsmanship.  He identified with others who shared his artistic sensibilities, including these sidewalk artists and their customers.

 

 

 
 
 
 

New York City in the 1940s

Photography by John Fass

 

 
Above: Prometheus statue at Rockefeller Center

 

 
John Fass' career in printing, publishing, and graphic design kept him in Manhattan for much of his life. John was a country boy at heart, having grown up in Lancaster County, PA. Despite his lifelong celebration of his rural roots, John's photography also showcases his enthusiasm for his adopted city of New York.

Many of his urban photographs from the 1940s reflect the modern, precisionist sensibilities of the two Pennsylvania artists who pioneered Precisionism in modern art: Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler. Some of his other New York photographs document daily street life of the city, which he observed and photographed as an adopted son of the city.

 

 
Above: Reilly's Square Deal Market

 

 

Above:  View from the park

 

 
 Above: Chinatown

 

 
 Above: Atlas statue and NBC building at Rockefeller Center

 

 
Above:  The Flatiron Building

 

Above:  Liberal loans, a fish, and the Empire State Building

 

 
Above: Manhattan skyline seen from Brooklyn
 

 
 Above:  The Chrysler Building

 

 
Above:  The New York Public Library

 

 Above:  The New York Public Library

 

 
 Above:  The New York Public Library

 

 
 Above:  Ticker tape parade

 

 
  Above: Window shopping

 

 

Above:  The George Washington Bridge

 

 

 Above: Square with fountain

 

 

Above: Square with fountain

 

 
 
Above:  Manhattan skyline seen from Brooklyn

 

 
 Above:  U. S. S. Missouri in New York

 
 
 Above:  George Washington statue on Wall Street

 1953: John Fass Photographs the American West

 

 Above: John Fass in California in 1953, at age 63.

John Fass somehow always seemed to look at least 10 years younger than his actual age. Jackson Burke described his appearance in a 1962 article "The Hammer Creek Press of John S. Fass."

Burke wrote, "He is a slight man of medium height whose hair seems prematurely white because it caps an unlined, young and serene countenance.  His eyes are active, glowing and more than slightly amused. His mind and wit are quick and his conversation is nimble.  He has many good friends because he is himself a good friend.  He doesn't look like a turtle at all." (A reference to John's turtle logo for his Hammer Creek Press.)

John loved to travel.  His expeditions included Europe, the Caribbean, the American West, and elsewhere. John vacationed in the American West in 1946 and again in 1953.  These Kodachrome transparencies are from his 1953 travels.  He was "just rambling around out here for a short vacation" as he described it in a postcard to John DePol.

 

 Above: Cable car tracks in San Francisco

 

 Above: Chinatown

 

 Above:  Diagonal windows

 

 
Above:  Las Vegas Club

Above:  Golden Nugget Gambling Hall

 

 Above:  Las Vegas neon

 

Above:  Platters 

 

Above:  Will Rogers' home

 

Above:  Will Rogers' home

 

 
Above: Yosemite

 

 Above: Posing on a balcony

 

  
Above:  Posing on rocks

 

 
 Above:  Alone at the beach

 

 
 Above:  Balconies

 

 
 Above: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell

 

 
 Above: Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe at Grauman's Chinese Theater

 

 
 Above: Yellow umbrellas

 

 
Above: Tree on cliff in Jasper Park

 

 Above:  Santa Fe jewelry

 

 Above:  At Santa Fe, New Mexico

 

Above: Garden of the Gods, Colorado

 

 Above: Maligne Lake, Rocky Mountains

 

 

Above: Forest in Yosemite

Alone in a Landscape

Photography by John Fass

 

 Above: John's brother-in-law Clarence Wert fishing the Hammer Creek, alone
And a tangled crowd, elsewhere

 One of the themes in John Fass' photography is the theme of the solitary individual alone in a landscape. 

This is a theme of other 20th century Modernist artists.  It is particularly characteristic of Precisionism artists such as Edward Hopper.  Although John Fass' book arts are deeply rooted in medieval design, his photography is very much a part of his own modern era.

  

 
Above: John's brother-in-law Clarence Wert along the Susquehanna River