The Small Performances team was delighted to have the opportunity to present the Baskerville project at the annual Association of European Printing Museums’ three-day conference which this year investigated the relationship between printing history and the heritage sites that are custodians of the material evidence of print.
The conference was held at Winterbourne House & Garden, at the University of Birmingham between 3 and 5 September when over sixty heritage professionals and academics from across Europe gathered to consider the role of printing heritage in the twenty-first century and discuss the interdependent relationship between heritage sites and printing historians — how it works, how it could it work, the benefits, problems, and possible new models for working. Presentations were made on behalf to the Small Performance team by Caroline Archer-Parré, Mark Box and Ann-Marie Carey and Mark’s wonderful images of the punches were once again exhibited to an astonished and admiring audience and proved a great source of conversation.
The event included a visit to the Special Collections at the Cadbury Research Library, where delegates were treated to a handling session of Baskerville material, including the Boulton Family Baskerville Bible, which was acquired by the Library in 2020. The volume has international typographic interest, is nationally important, and has particular significance to the cultural heritage of Birmingham: demonstrating, as it does, how the lives of Boulton and Baskerville were intertwined both commercially and socially