Background
Ruzicka, Rudolph was born on June 29, 1883 in Bohemia. Son of Vaclav and Josephine (Reichman) Ruzicka.
Ruzicka, Rudolph was born on June 29, 1883 in Bohemia. Son of Vaclav and Josephine (Reichman) Ruzicka.
From 1900 to 1902 he attended further classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. In subsequent years he attended classes at both the Art Students League of New York and the New York School of Artist
Ruzicka designed typefaces and wood engraving illustrations for Daniel Berkeley Updike"s Merrymount Press, and was a designer for, and consultant to, the Mergenthaler Linotype Company for fifty years. He designed a number of seals and medals, including the American Institute of Graphic Arts (American Institute of Graphic Arts) and the Dartmouth Medal of the American Library Association. He emigrated to the United States of America at age ten, living first in Chicago where he took drawing lessons at the Hull House School before becoming an apprentice wood engraver.
In 1903 he moved to New York to work as an engraver at the American Bank Note Company and at Calkins & Holden.
In 1910 Ruzicka set up his own shop at 954 Lexington Avenue in New York City. He received his first major art commission from System magazine.
Many exhibitions followed, including such venues as the Societe de la Gravure, Paris, the Grolier Club, and the Century Association, New New York In 1916 Ruzicka built a house and a workshop in Dobbs Ferry, New New York
In 1948 he moved to Massachusetts, and eventually he settled in Vermont.
Over the years, Doctorate. B. Updike and Ruzicka collaborated on a number of well-respected book designs, including Newark and the Grolier Club"s Irving, as well as a fine series of Merrymount Press annual keepsakes. Ruzicka also provided substantial consulting for Updike"s book Printing Types. Lake Informal, designed for Linotype in 1935, though matrices were evidently never cut, as there is no record of this type having ever actually been cast in metal.
Design later used for so-called "digital type" in 1993.
Ruzicka Freehand, proposed designs made for Linotype in 1939 and never made into actual type. A digital knock-off of this design was made in 1993 by Ann Chaisson and Mark Altman.
Fairfield series
Fairfield + Italic (Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1940). Perhaps twenty digital variants of this face have been designed by Alex Kaczun for Linotype.
Fairfield Medium + Italic (Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1949).
A digital knock-off of this has been issued by Bitstream as Transitional 751. Primer + Italic (Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1953), designed for legibility and to compete with A.T.F."s Century Schoolbook. A digital knock-off of this has been issued by Bitstream as Century 751.
Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences. Clubs: Century, Grolier (honorary) (New York City). Club of Odd Volumes (honorary) (Boston).
Illustrator books, 1915-1978.
Married Filomena Srpova, August 3, 1914. Children: Tatiana, Veronica.