The 1960s: Reawakening the Craft

In the 1960s, decorated paper arts experienced a revival influenced by the counterculture movement which encouraged a reverence for traditional crafts and artistic freedom. The world opened for young people, who began to imagine that they could earn a living for themselves making things by hand. The artists whose work is shown in this case were working or entered the field in the 1960s. They were visual artists, bookbinders, restorers, and librarians who fell in love with the beauty and magical process of marbling paper.

Paul Maurer (b. 1941)

Marbled paper with topographic pattern, ca. 1990. Lithography ink, mineral spirits, and Tabasco sauce on commercial paper.

Paul Maurer, active 1962–96, taught himself to marble from the Webb and Cockerell texts shown in this exhibition. From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Maurer taught workshops throughout North America. He made one-of-a-kind papers, mostly for his own book projects. By marbling experimentally with oil-based paint, printing ink, artists’ paints, solvents, and unusual dispersants like Tabasco sauce, he achieved diverse and exhilarating effects.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Paul Maurer

Don Guyot (1944–2020)

Marbled paper, Wave pattern, 1980. Proprietary water-based paint on tan paper.

Don Guyot, active 1969–2000, was a librarian at the Seattle Public Library when he began to study bookbinding, restoration, and marbling with Rodney Oleson at the University of Washington. His specialty was traditional water-based marbling in both Western and suminagashi techniques. During his influential career he taught countless workshops across North America and established Colophon Book Arts Supply, the first American company to produce and market marbling supplies and equipment, which is still in operation today.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Don Guyot

Olaf (b. 1940)

Purple Monochromatical Monomaniacal Merry-Go-Round, 1990. Oil-marbled paper; artists’ oil paint, chemicals, solvents, and paint additives on machine-made paper.

Olaf, active 1969–75, is a self-taught marbler living in Berkeley, California. His patterns, which resemble microscopic organisms, were made with oil-based paints and solvents. Olaf and John Coventry marbled together outdoors in Berkeley in a tank made from the inverted roof of a Volkswagen bus. Although Olaf did not marble commercially, he contributed to the field artistically and as an organizer of the Second International Marblers’ Gathering, held in San Francisco, in 1992.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Susan Pogány

Jack Townes (b. 1953)

Painted paper, 2009. Golden acrylic and Gamblin metallic gold powder on Permafiber Permalin Multicolor paper.

Jack Townes, active 1978–2011, is the life and business partner of Peggy Skycraft, who entered the field in 1969. Skycraft and Townes specialized in making and licensing decorated papers and fabrics under the aegis Skycraft Marbled Designs. Townes’ artistic and business acumen and his talent as an equipment fabricator allowed them to fulfill commissions of up to 30,000 sheets per year.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Peggy Skycraft and Jack Townes

Paul Maurer. Oil Marbling. Approximations. Spring Mills, PA: Paul Maurer, 1990.

Paul Maurer, marbler, calligrapher, and educator, made this hand-drawn, photocopied, and collaged pamphlet to share the techniques and resources he discovered about oil-marbling with his workshop students.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Paul Maurer

Paul Maurer (b. 1941)

Miniature marbling kit, ca. 1986.

Repurposed Avery label box, handmade tools, and leather pouch.

Paul Maurer, active 1962–96, made this kit after becoming inspired by a presentation he attended on historic marbling at Harvard University where Christopher Weimann showed examples of his miniature marbled papers. For these papers, Maurer used absorbent paper with no mordant. Maurer often demonstrated the use of the kit during his workshops. Many standard marbling tools are represented, including combs, brushes, and drawing tools.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Paul Maurer

Tom Neiman (designer). Gift tin for Sambuca Romana, Liquore Classico di Roma with Skycraft marbled design, ca. 1990.

The blue Bouquet design was one of Skycraft’s and Townes’ most popular and lucrative patterns. It was used for this printed tin as well as a matching Sambuca gift package.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Peggy Skycraft and Jack Townes

Peggy Skycraft (b. 1941) and

Jack Townes (b. 1953)

Marbled paper, Bouquet pattern, 1990.
Proprietary acrylic and pigment paint on Permalin Multicolor paper

Peggy Skycraft (who first learned marbling from Pauline Johnson’s Creative Bookbinding), active 1969-2011, and her husband Jack Townes, of Estacada, Oregon, became two of the most prolific paper artists of the era. Skycraft’s artistry and Townes’s ingenuity resulted in copious amounts of beautiful marbled, paste, and painted papers. At the height of their business, they produced up to 30,000 sheets annually for licensing and commercial use. Surplus papers were sold through art venues nationwide.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Peggy Skycraft and Jack Townes

Samuel W. Webb. “Paper Marbling, a True Abstraction,” in American Artist, February 1962.

Samuel W. Webb was a little-known American marbler who began oil-marbling in the early 1960s in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In this article, Webb, who marbles with lithographic ink thinned with turpentine on a gum tragacanth bath, encourages artists to try their hand at the craft. In 1962, Webb donated eighteen papers to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Friends of the Thomas J. Watson Library Gift

Pauline Johnson. Creative Bookbinding. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963.

Pauline Johnson (1905–94) was a Professor of Art at the University of Washington. Her influential book, published in fifty-four editions, includes instructions for making twenty-three types of printed, painted, and marbled paper. In the Preface, Johnson describes this as a book for beginners by which they can develop artistic expression and experience delight in their product. Shown here is the cheerful and inviting front cover of the first edition.

Private collection

Pauline Johnson. Creative Bookbinding. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963.

Johnson’s chapter on decorated paper provides instructions for twenty-three techniques including potato printing, as seen here. Others include crayon resist, wax resist, marbling, eraser prints, linoleum prints, innertube prints, cardboard prints, paraffin prints, sponge prints, stick prints, gadget prints, brayer prints, string prints, stencil prints, silk-screen prints, cutout shapes, torn paper, three-dimensional appliqués, painted papers, fold-and-dye, ink-and-fold, and paste or starch papers.

Private collection

Douglass Morse Howell (1906–94)

Handmade paper, white flax fiber, blue and yellow pigment, ca. 1960s–ca. 1970s.

By the 1960s, Douglass Morse Howell, active 1946–84, was an accomplished papermaker who created unique decorated papers using colored and textured pulp made of beaten and semi-beaten raw flax, vintage linen textiles, and other materials. From these papers, he made fine art, as well as utilitarian sheets of paper, blank books, and broadsides.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Alexandra Soteriou

Douglass Morse Howell (1906-1994)

The Art of the Book: “sketchbooks” / some hand-bindings by Douglass Morse Howell, 1974. Hardbound blank book, with printed description; handmade paper of raw flax and linen; and brochure.

Douglass Howell, active 1946–84, produced unique blank journals bound with linen fabric spines and covers made of handmade flax paper over sculpted boards. In this case, three triangular pieces of thick paper were applied to the boards before covering. The pure white, loft-dried, waterleaf paper pages inside were made from white linen cloth.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Alexandra Soteriou

Norma Rubovits (1918–2016). Marbled Vignettes. Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1992.

Norma Rubovits, active 1964–98, learned about decorated paper through studying hand bookbinding and she made and collected it for the rest of her life. Rubovits taught herself to marble through books and correspondence. She specialized in creating delicate miniatures and made larger sheets as well. Her work was exhibited in 1969 at the Chicago Public Library, and later nationwide. Rubovits’s collection is now in the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Friends of the Thomas J. Watson Library

Sage Reynolds (b. 1948)

Paste paper, ca. 1985. Paste with acrylic on Arches paper.

The classical egg-and-dart motif inspired this pattern designed by Sage Reynolds, active 1977-2019. The paper was made for his design collection, which was created to appeal to wallcovering and fabric designers. It has been used for his Art Deco style invitations and as borders in his murals. The pattern was also produced in another color variant, with silver paint on black paper.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Friends of Thomas J. Watson Library Gift