{{Short description|American painter (1882–1967)}} {{for|the businessman and art collector|Victor Hammer (businessman)}}
{{more citations needed|date=January 2013}} {{Infobox artist | name = Victor Hammer | image = | caption = | birth_name = Viktor Carl Hammer | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=y|1882|12|9}} | birth_place = Vienna, Austro-Hungary | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=y|1967|07|08|1882|12|9}} | death_place = Lexington, Kentucky, US | field = Painting, drawing, printing | education = Heinrich Lefler, Christian Griepenkerl, Hans Bitterlich | alma_mater = Academy of Fine Arts Vienna | movement = | works = ''American Uncial'' | patrons = | awards = }} '''Victor Karl Hammer''' (December 9, 1882 – July 8, 1967) was an Austrian-born American painter, sculptor, printer, and typographer.
==Early life== Hammer was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary to Karl and Maria (Fuhrmann) Hammer. He began his apprenticeship in architecture at the age of fifteen in the studio of Camillo Sitte, author of ''Der Staedte-Bau nach seinen kuenstlerischen Graundsaetzen''. In 1898, he transferred to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, which he left ten years later. Hammer received the Prix de Rome in 1909.<ref>Pearson, Paul M.: ''The Letters of Thomas Merton and Victor and Carolyn Hammer: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam''. University Press of Kentucky, 2014, p. 9.</ref>
==Professional artist== Hammer produced his first type design, ''Hammer Uncial'', in 1921. In 1922, he moved to Florence, Italy, where he set up a printing press. In 1929, he moved his printing operation into the ''Villa Santuccio'' in Florence and named it the ''Stamperia del Santuccio''. The first book that was printed in this operation was Milton's ''Samson Agonistes'' (1931), using what would be known as his Samson Uncial type. Punches for the type were cut by Paul Koch, son of Rudolf Koch. Hammer moved to Kolbsheim in Alsace in 1934, where he designed and built a chapel on an estate for a friend.
From 1936 to 1939, Hammer lived in Vienna, where he served as professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. In 1939, he fled the Nazis and immigrated with his first wife to the United States, leaving behind all his cutting and casting tools and most of his fonts.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Symbol of the Society: Typography|journal=Chicago Jewish History |date=2000|volume=24|issue=4|page=15 |url=http://chicagojewishhistory.org/media/622/CJH42000.pdf|access-date=21 October 2017}}</ref> He taught at Wells College in Aurora, New York until 1948. Here, he produced American Uncial{{snd}} the best known of his five typefaces.
In 1948, Hammer settled in Lexington, Kentucky and was artist-in-residence at Transylvania University, a post he held until retirement in 1953. While in Kentucky, Hammer was known for designing the official seal of Louisville, which was used until the city's city-county government merger in 2003. He also designed the seal for the University of Louisville, a portrait of Minerva, which has been used since the 1950s (although revised in the 1990s for better reproduction on screens).
Hammer built his wooden press in 1927 with the help of local Florentine craftsmen based on a press in the Laurentian Library; in 1960, the Laurentian's press was discovered to be a copy constructed in 1818.<ref>Holbrook, p. 10.</ref> It was first used to print ''Samson Agonistes.'' When he closed his studio in 1933, the press was stored. In 1954, it was moved to the University of Kentucky where it has been in use by the King Library Press since 1959.
==Personal life and death== Hammer was first married to Rosl Rossbach, and together they had two children, Veronika and Jacob. Hammer married Carolyn Reading in 1955. Carolyn Reading Hammer founded the King Library Pres in 1956 and later became the University of Kentucky Libraries' curator of rare books.<ref>{{cite web | title = Sesquicentennial Stories: Hot Off the Press | publisher = UKNOW: University of Kentucky News | place = Lexington KY | date = 2 August 2013 | url = http://uknow.uky.edu/content/sesquicentennial-stories-hot-press | access-date = 5 August 2013}}</ref> Since 1943, Carolyn Reading and Amelia Buckley had been printing at their Bur Press and their Chandler & Price printing press was moved to Bullock Place in Lexington when Carolyn and Victor Hammer married. This press, together with the antique-style wooden press Victor used in Florence in the 1920s, were both moved to the King Library Press at the University of Kentucky's M. I. King Library.
During his life, Hammer was also good friends with Thomas Merton. Hammer hand printed the first edition of his work, ''[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/943800 The Wisdom of the Desert]''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Merton|first=Thomas|title=The Wisdom of the Desert|year=1970|publisher=New Direction Book|location=New York|isbn=0-8112-0102-3|pages=ix|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/wisdomofdesertsa0000mert}}</ref>
Hammer died in Lexington on July 8, 1967, and is buried in the cemetery of Pisgah Presbyterian Church near Versailles, Kentucky.
==Typefaces== thumb|Example of ''American Uncial'' {{columns-list|colwidth=30em| *'''Hammer Uncial''' (1923, Klingspor) *'''Samson''' (c. 1930, privately cast) *'''Pindar''' (1933) *'''American Uncial''' (1943, Dearborn Typefoundry) *'''American Uncial''' (revised version, 1953, Klingspor) *'''Andromaque''' (1958, cast by Deberny & Peignot for the Anvil Press) *'''Hammer Samson Uncial''' (c. 1970, revision of ''Samson'' by R. Hunter Middleton, privately cast) *'''Andromaque''' (1980s, revised by R. Hunter Middleton and cast by Paul H. Duensing.) }}
==Publications== * Type design in relation to language & to the art of the punch cutter. Aurora, New York 1947. * A dialogue on the Uncial between a paeongrapher and a printer. Aurora, New York 1946. * Erläuternde Anmerkungen zur Pindar-Schrift. Salzburg 1938. * Victor Hammer. Graz 1936.
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== * Holbrook, Paul Evans. ''An Introduction to Victor & Carolyn Hammer with a Listing of the Books Printed at Their Several Presses'' (Lexington, KY: The Anvil Press), 1995.
==External links== * [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/pdf/HammerFindingAid.pdf Finding Aid] for Victor Hammer collection at the Library of Congress * [https://nyheritage.org/collections/victor-hammer-collection The Victor Hammer Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections] * [http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/KLP/ King Library Press site] * [http://www.wells.edu/academics/book-arts-center/ Wells Book Arts Center site] * [http://library.louisville.edu/ld.php?content_id=31797947 Finding aid for Victor Hammer's papers] at the University of Louisville's Margaret M. Bridwell Art Library * [https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt79319s4j1s/guide Victor and Carolyn Hammer papers] at the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center * [https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt7ns17snq7z/guide Victor Hammer papers] at the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center * [http://hammersociety.org The Victor Hammer Society]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hammer, Victor}} Category:1882 births Category:1967 deaths Category:Painters from Vienna Category:20th-century American painters Category:American male painters Category:20th-century Austrian painters Category:20th-century American male artists Category:Austrian male painters Category:Austrian male sculptors Category:Artists from Lexington, Kentucky Category:American printers Category:Painters from Kentucky Category:Wells College faculty Category:Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni Category:Austrian typographers and type designers Category:American typographers and type designers Category:20th-century Austrian sculptors Category:Austrian emigrants to the United States Category:20th-century Austrian male artists