The Wayzgoose Press: 1985–2021
Katoomba, Australia
The Wayzgoose Press (Michael Hudson and Jadwiga Jarvis), was a fiercely independent, reclusive private press operating from the depths of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, and its output was extraordinary by anyone’s standards. They combined their individual professional design skills with techniques such as handset letterpress, wood engraving, linocut, photography, craft bookbinding and calligraphy. By the time Mike and Jadwiga ‘retired’ from undertaking large-scale productions (around 2012), they had produced 20 fine press books and over 40 printed broadsides as well as numerous keepsakes. They continued with one project only: annual political posters as part of the collective German printing project ‘Typomania’, which they continued to design and print until 2020.
Legacy
Mike and Jadwiga died in 2021. Their records and production archives now reside in the Rare Books collection of the State Library of Victoria alongside a complete collection of their printed output. Caren Florance is their estate executor but any enquiries and reproduction permissions should be directed to the State Library of Victoria.
Remaining Wayzgoose Press works will be listed for sale here in the near(ish) future, including copies of their 2007 survey monograph, The Wayzgoose Affair.
Fun fact: The Wayzgoose Press is not connected to the Wayzgoose Café in Leura.
Selected articles on The Wayzgoose Press
Cowley, Des, ‘The Archive of Wayzgoose Press’, OzArts, Winter 2015.
Cowley, Des, ‘Wayzgoose Press Archive‘, La Trobe Journal 100, 2017.
Finn, Lawrence, ‘Wayzgoose Press: The Grit in the Ink‘, OzArts, Summer 2018.
Florance, Caren, ‘Bound together by books’, Morocco Bound: Journal of Australian Craft Bookbinders 42.1, Winter 2021
Florance, Caren, ‘The Unrepeatable Wayzgoose Press’, Artist Book Year Book 2024, forthcoming.
