John Stroble Fass (August 25, 1890 - July 19, 1973) was an American graphic designer and a printer of fine press books. Fass designed books for the leading American publishers of limited edition books. Collectors of private press books also remember John Fass for the handcrafted books he printed on a tabletop printing press in his one-room apartment at the Bronx YMCA. Fass' books and his photography celebrate his life in New York City, where he lived most of his career. His work also documents his passion for the rural landscapes of his native Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Early life
John S. Fass was born in Lititz, Pennsylvania, a borough located in Lancaster County. His father, David C. Fass, was a cigar maker and a laborer. John's mother, Sara C. Fass, supplemented the family income as a dressmaker. The family had deep roots in rural Lancaster County; Fass' family included Moravian and Mennonite ancestry.
Although Fass' career kept him in New York City for more than 40 years, he frequently returned to his quiet hometown of Lititz. Fass never married, and maintained close ties with his relatives in Lancaster County, where he returned in old age to live with his sister Esther Wert in Lititz.
Fass began his career in the printing trade as a 12-year-old, working summers as an errand boy for a Lititz newspaper's print shop. After graduating from high school, he continued his work at the Lititz print shop, working as a typesetter.
After serving in the U. S. Army, Fass moved to Philadelphia in 1918 to work as a compositor for the Holmes Press. Two years later Fass moved to New York City to work as a compositor for David Gildea & Company which specialized in advertising design and typography.
From 1923 to 1925 Fass worked for the printing and publishing house of William Edwin Rudge at Mount Vernon, New York. The town is located in West Chester County, on the border of the Bronx. While employed by William Rudge, John worked alongside Bruce Rogers, who was "the greatest modern book designer" according to a 1939 Time magazine article. Rogers' modernist-yet-classical design sensibility greatly influenced Fass' own sense of style. Fass' style became characterized by clean, precisionist design accented with finely crafted ornament.
Harbor Press
In 1925 Fass left the Rudge shop to create his own printing house with a Rudge co-worker, Roland Wood and wife Elizabeth Wood. That same year they founded the Harbor Press in a small shop in midtown Manhattan. The press specialized in creating fine-edition books, with Fass focusing on the design, and Roland Wood usually doing the printing.
The Harbor Press quickly established a reputation for producing beautifully crafted books. Fass and Wood produced limited editions of works by leading American writers such as Robert Frost and William Faulkner, signed by the writers. George Macy, the publisher of the Limited Editions Club, soon noticed Fass' talents. From 1925 into the 1940s, John designed most of the books published by John Macy. In addition, the Harbor Press designed and printed works for New York's most influential bibliophiles: the members of the Grolier Club and members of the Typophiles.
Books printed at Fass' Harbor Press include: Extracts from the Diary of Roger Payne (1928) For the American Institute of Graphic Arts. A Way Out: A One Act Play (1929) By Robert Frost. Undine (1930) By F. De La Motte Fouqué for the Limited Editions Club. The Epping Hunt (1930) By Thomas Hood for the Derrydale Press. Idyll in the Desert (1931) By William Faulkner for Random House. A Bibliography of the Works of Ernest Hemingway (1931) By Louis Henry Cohn. The Golden Ass (1932) By Apuleius for the Limited Editions Club. The Angler (1933) By Washington Irving. Hunting Sketches (1933) By Anthony Trollope. The Study of Incunabula (1933) For the Grolier Club. Typee by Herman Melville (1935) For the Limited Editions Club. The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1937) By Oscar Wilde for the Limited Editions Club.
Dr Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, in his Book in America explained that John Fass and his Harbor Press created books with "...a flavor of good breeding and tradition...which is pleasantly mixed with a sense of humor and intimacy."
John Fass and Roland Wood closed the Harbor Press in 1939. Wood pursued a career in acting, while John Fass continued his career as a book designer for leading American publishers, and a graphic designer for New York advertising companies, where he specialized in designing advertising typography. He was a typographer for Young and Rubicam, one of Manhattan's largest advertising companies. Fass continued working in New York advertising and publishing for the rest of his career.