Friends of the John Rylands

Note that this meeting is at the library building in the University campus on Oxford Road.

Professor Ian Rogerson will give an illustrated talk dealing with all the major and minor processes which have been used since the dawn of printing in Western Europe which have led to the superlative colour printing of today which we now take for granted. Until the appearance of autolithography in Allen Lane's Puffin Picture Books in 1940, colour printing was too expensive for general use and the few colour plates found in the children's annuals of the thirties generated an excitement which can hardly be envisaged by those who have grown up in a coloured world. From the earliest printed book, the search for affordable colour has proved a challenge and the talk will provide a survey of the processes used in colour printing from the late eighteenth century up to the present time.

Professor Rogerson is the former librarian of Manchester Metropolitan University. Since his retirement he has held a Research Fellowship in John Rylands and has written extensively on the history of the book.