It was 1936. The boy had graduated from Townsend Harris HighSchool in New York City at 16 and entered City College. He was a precocious ladand, like many of those around him, of immigrant stock. His father had beenborn in Vienna, his mother in Romania. The Dean was now looking at him, havingcalled him into his office, and asked to see his notebook. The boy had terriblegrades and had been truant. After leafing through the notebook, the Dean said,“Mr. Heller, have you ever thought of going to an art school?” And young JulesHeller said, “No.” And the Dean said. “Well you obviously don’t belong at CityCollege. Why don’t you go to an art school before I throw you out?” Manyartists will identify in some way with this story of the beginnings of alifelong career in art for Jules Heller, author of Papermaking (Watson-Guptill,1978). Jules Heller died on December 28, 2007, in Scottsdale, Arizona, after along life in art and in the service of art. As an artist, printmaker, teacher,professor, dean, administrator, and author, Jules accomplished much during hisseven decades in art. Papermakers around the world know the name Jules Hellerbecause of his book, Papermaking, and yet most do not know that Jules was notin fact a paper artist, did not make much paper, and was not the masterpapermaker many assume him to be. As a lifelong printmaker, paper was justanother subject connected to the art he loved that fascinated him andeventually led to a book. The fact that it was the first comprehensive book onthe art of papermaking, and was published as the “paper as art” movement wasjust beginning to blossom and spread, has caused him to be revered by many andelevated to a status in the medium he never attained. This is not to say thatJules Heller is not important. For papermakers, his book alone makes himimportant. It opened many eyes to the wonders and the techniques of the medium.It still does. And it opened the way for many papermaking authors who camelater with other books—some more specialized, some more historical, some moretechnical—all of which expanded the literature of the field on the bookshelfthat Jules helped to construct. His story is a fascinating one. After anunsatisfactory year at the art school located in the penthouse of the FlatironBuilding on Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, Jules recalled, “I remembergoing to the New York Public Library and going to the college catalogs andstarting with the As, and never got beyond the As because there was a placecalled Arizona State College in Tempe, Arizona where the tuition forout-oftowners was something like 37 dollars and 50 cents…And board and room was25 dollars a month. And I figured as long as there was a piano and there was asocial life, I could probably get by playing the piano.” Jules was a terrificpiano player and excelled at jazz piano. So he did an undergraduate degree inart education at the school in Tempe that later became Arizona State University(ASU), went back to New York, and, since it was the Depression and there werefew jobs, he went to Columbia University and received a master’s degree. Hetaught art for a year in Western New York and then entered the Army in 1941,where he became a trainer for bombardiers, spending the entire war stateside,training others to go and fight. After the war’s end in 1945, he enrolled atthe University of Southern California to pursue his doctorate degree. There hetaught Art Appreciation classes at 7:00 in the morning to rooms full ofreturning GIs, which he gladly undertook for the extra money. The GIs scaredthe older faculty, but Jules was one himself, so had no problem with them. Heeventually completed his doctorate, continued teaching courses at USC, and bythe time he left the faculty in 1961, he was full professor, chair of thedepartment, and had taught every course in the curriculum except for ceramics.During his time at USC, some remarkable things happened. The day after gettingmarried in June 1947, Jules and his bride Gloria drove to Mexico City to spendthe summer making prints at the Taller de Gráfica Popular, staying in the homeof TGP founder Leopoldo Mendez. He contributed a linocut of Francisco Madero tothe ongoing History of the Mexican Revolution portfolio that the members of theTaller produced over a number of years. He also recalls learning a new methodof critiquing artwork; every Friday, all current prints were placed on thecleared floor of the studio and everyone stood around and talked about them,regardless of “status” or age. All voices were heard and all comments were fairgame. It was a technique that he brought back and instituted in his classes atUSC. During the mid-1950s, Jules developed the printmaking curriculum at USC. Hehad Bob Blackburn put a litho press on a boat in New York and send it throughthe Panama Canal for Jules and his students to pick up at the dock at LongBeach. Jules introduced screenprint to printmaking education in California aswell as a complete program of print media, which led him to collect his notesand thoughts on what information print students should have in the classroomstudio, eventually publishing Printmaking in 1958 with Watson-Guptill, thefirst studio printmaking book to include all four graphic processes. Alsoduring this time, Jules organized annual national printmaking exhibits andfounded the first quarterly printmaking magazine, Impression, which ran forfour issues before he turned over the mailing list and other material to thePratt Institute. In 1961, Jules left USC and became the founding Dean of theCollege of Arts and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University in CollegePark. In 1969, he moved to York University in Toronto, a newly establishedschool, to found the College of Fine Arts there, a notable step, since theCanadian model in the arts was for conservatories and academies, not collegesof the arts. While gathering notes and information for his Printmaking book,Jules had set aside notes regarding hand papermaking. He continued to researchthe subject as well as contacting practitioners of this newly emergingcontemporary medium. By the time he moved back to Tempe, Arizona, in 1976, tobe the dean of the Arizona State University College of Fine Arts, he was deepinto papermaking and motivated enough to get the university to give this newdean a set of basement rooms for a paper mill. He acquired a Valley Laboratorybeater and a Noble & Wood 5-pound beater, had a hydraulic press built, andbegan teaching graduate students to make paper. Meanwhile, his new book,Papermaking, was published in 1978. He soon returned to full-timeadministration and left the mill and the teaching of paper to students of histo pass on to other students. In 1980, I was hired by ASU to establish bookarts classes and a book arts press within the Printmaking Area. Once that gotgoing, I began teaching regular papermaking classes in the mill established byJules. Happily, it continues in use today. Jules continued as an able artsadministrator while also continuing to pursue his art. He took up computer artbefore many artists would recognize the machine, starting with an Amiga andgraduating to the Mac. On a sabbatical year in the late 1980s, he produced over3,000 monotypes, many of which he sketched first on his computer to work outthe visual ideas. He stepped down from his Dean’s position in 1987 and taughtprintmaking courses for another three years before retiring to his home inScottsdale. There, he co-authored a biographical dictionary of women artistswith his art historian daughter, Nancy, published in 1995, and made digital artuntil he died, upgrading his printers and software continually. In 2005, JoeSegura, ASU printmaking faculty member, collaborative print publisher, anddocumentary filmmaker, asked me to assist him in filming a documentary of JulesHeller’s life. We are currently condensing many hours of interviews into a 50-minute film. We made a 20-minute edit to show at a memorial celebration ofJules’ life in April 2008, at the ASU Art Museum, where the Print StudyCollection has been named in his honor. A remarkable life, a remarkable artist,and an important if littleknown figure in the literature of contemporary art,Jules Heller left an enormous imprint on many people through his many andvaried activities in art. Jules will be missed for his commitment not only topaper and print, but to art that has a social and political purpose. He willalso be greatly missed for his sense of humor, wit, and gentlemanly demeanor.
Jules Heller’s seminal book, Papermaking, published in 1978by Watson–Guptill, New York.
Inaugural Paper Class at Arizona State University, 1977.Jules Heller kneeling at left of vat. Photo: Tom Morrissey.
Jules Heller, Francisco Madera, 1947, 11 ¼ x 8 inches,linocut. Photo: Travis Janssen. Jules Heller, Self Portrait, LA, 1947, 12 x 9inches, lithograph. Photo: Travis Janssen.
