Artist and writer David Lance Goines (1945-2023) was born in Grants Pass, Oregon, the oldest of eight children. His father was a civil engineer, and his mother, an accomplished artist and calligrapher. Goines attended the University of California at Berkeley as a Classics major, but in his second year was expelled as a consequence of his participation in the Free Speech Movement. Though later readmitted, he had by then lost his taste for higher education and in 1965 apprenticed with a Berkeley printer, becoming in the fullness of time a journeyman of that Art and Mystery.
In 1968 he founded Saint Hieronymus Press in the same Berkeley printshop where he had learned his trade. There he remained, designing his work and printing it by both letterpress and photo-offset lithography. He was closely associated with his friend Alice Waters and her world-renowned restaurant Chez Panisse, for which he made a commemorative poster every year since its first birthday in 1972.
His artwork has been reproduced in numerous professional publications, including American Illustration, Communication Arts, Graphis, How, Print, and Step-By-Step Graphics. His writing and artwork have been the recipients of many awards, most notably the 1983 American Book Award for his book, A Constructed Roman Alphabet (a poster for which is included below). His artwork is represented in both public and private collections, including The Smithsonian, and has been exhibited in more than one hundred one-man and group shows, both national and international. Goines lectured frequently, in various places nationwide, and taught occasionally at the University of California, Berkeley, at the UC Extension, and the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland. In 2010, Dover published a 40 year retrospective of his work (cover at left). He was the author of five books, collaborated on three, and his work has been the subject of six others.
David Goines died on February 19, 2023 after suffering a stroke. He was 77.
View David Lance Goines’s website…
Read Tim’s post, “David Goines, Chez Panisse, and a Fifty Year Legacy Suitable for Framing”…
Read Tim’s post “R.I.P., Mr. Goines.”
Read a 2009 interview with David Goines, “David Goines Discusses Perfect Poster Design”…
Read a 1989 New York Times story on David Goines…