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Michael Harvey

1931–2013

National Flags Series postcard design: ‘Valhalla’ [1975]
© The estate of Ian Hamilton Finlay
In Tate Britain

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Biography

Michael Harvey MBE (11 November 1931 – 18 October 2013) was an English lettering artist, teacher, and writer specialising in lettering, type design, and letter cutting. His work appears in many English cathedrals and on the National Gallery, London.1

Originally he was inspired by reading Eric Gill's Autobiography. In the early 1950s, he learned stone carving from Joseph Cribb. He worked as Reynolds Stone's assistant between 1955 and 1961. He then became a freelance, producing some 1500 hand-lettered book jackets over the next twenty years for major publishers such as Heinemann, The Bodley Head, and Cambridge University Press. As technology changed he developed his interest in type, producing designs for Adobe Systems and The Monotype Corporation and later, with Andy Benedek for his own foundry, Finefonts. His inscriptional work included a long collaboration with Ian Hamilton Finlay. He gave talks and demonstrated widely and taught for a number of years at Poole Art College and later ran the Letterforms course at Reading University with James Mosley.n

He designed a number of typefaces, including Zephyr, Andreas, Mentor, Strayhorn, and Ellington.

In 2012, he published under his own 47 Editions imprint Adventures With Letters, an extensively illustrated memoir of his working life.

He was an active member of The Double Crown Club, The Wynkyn de Worde Society, ATypI, Letter Exchange, and The Edward Johnston Foundation.

In 2022, the Lettering Arts Centre in Suffolk, England, mounted a retrospective of Harvey's work.

This biography is from Wikipedia under an . Spotted a problem? Let us know.

Sketches, letters, etc.

  • ‘Is there a ship named The Wave Sheaf?’ postcard design

    Ian Hamilton Finlay, Michael Harvey
    [1972]
    View by appointment
  • ‘Homage to Victor Sylvester’ postcard design

    Ian Hamilton Finlay, Michael Harvey
    [1973]
    View by appointment
  • National Flags Series postcard design: ‘Valhalla’

    Michael Harvey, Ian Hamilton Finlay
    [1975]
    View by appointment
  • National Flags Series postcard design: ‘Utopia’

    Ian Hamilton Finlay, Michael Harvey
    [1975]
    View by appointment

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