About the Museum

The Museum of Printing History displays a dynamic collection of historical documents, fine art prints, and antique printing equipment. Our Museum is more, though, than its permanent collection. It is alive with exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and demonstrations. In our galleries and working studios, we demonstrate the traditional processes of stone lithography, letterpress printing, papermaking, and bookbinding.

Artifacts in the collection range in time from humanity's earliest writing through the twenty-first century. Our exhibitions document history from the origins of printing on Mesopotamian clay tablets around 3000 B.C., through pre-Gutenberg manuscript production. The collection reflects the beginning of printing in Europe with Gutenberg's invention of movable type, and illustrates printing of the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and beyond.

A visitor will find the Dharani Scroll, an 8th-century Japanese text which is commonly considered the first example of printing words onto paper; a page from William Caxton, the first printer of the English language; a Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary printed by Juan Pablos, the first printer in the Americas; Old Master woodcuts and engravings; and various other treasures. In addition, the Museum contains exhibit spaces devoted to American Colonial printed documents and examples of early Texas printing.

During our guided tours, visitors participate in the hands-on printing of a leaf of the Gutenberg Bible pulled from a period-accurate press, then move to the printing of the Declaration of Independence on a 19th-century Columbian iron handpress. Our tours complement a wide range of study, from science and technology to English Language Arts, from history to fine arts. While they explore the Museum, visitors and students will encounter scholars and artists who are gifted at bringing the past to life.

Visitors to our workshops can view demonstrations and attend classes in letterpress printing, bookbinding, papermaking, lithography, and related arts. Our teachers, noted artists in their fields, welcome opportunities to display and discuss their work, in addition to teaching intensive classes. The Museum also hosts groups dedicated to maintaining the arts of the book: the Museum's Book Arts Group and its Printers' Guild each meet on a monthly basis to promote collaboration, exchange techniques and ideas, and to create hands-on projects.

The Museum contains four rotating galleries which present original exhibitions upon a wide range of topics. We have recently mounted exhibitions on book forgery, pop-up books, and early African exploration; a collaboration with Houston's own John Lienhard; and the work of artists from Edward Gorey to Marc Chagall. Our shows frequently depict subjects with local interest, including promotional posters from Houston's great 1970's rock venue, Liberty Hall, and a retrospective of our city's rich heritage of newspaper reporting and printing.

The Museum of Printing History was founded in 1979 by Raoul Beasley, Vernon P. Hearn, Don Piercy, and J. V. Burnham, four printers with passions for preserving their vast collections and sharing them with the community. It was chartered in 1981 and had its official opening in 1982 with Dr. Hans Halaby, Director of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany, cutting the ribbon.

The mission of the Museum is to promote, preserve, and share the knowledge of printed communication and art as the greatest contributors to the development of the civilized world and the continuing advancement of freedom and literacy.

Featured in the July 2006 issue of Texas Highways, the Museum is described as "a honeycomb of intimate gallery spaces . . . with a stunning collection of objects and artifacts devoted to the history, science, and art of printing." The portrait of the Museum concludes with the observation that "printed text may be taken for granted these days, but a visit to the Museum of Printing History somehow makes it seem magical once again."