![]() Likewise, by exhibiting side by side machines and printed products, films and audiovisual displays, and even a digital printing workshop, the Atelier-Musée Imprimerie situates the technical advances which have marked printing within the context of an ever-changing society. The themes which are dealt with in the different sections of the exhibition often underline the continuities which run through the history graphic communication and the pertinence of printing history in the digital age with titles such as: the first media the triumph of the written word the arts and crafts of printing the world as graphosphere. ![]() The Atelier-Musée Imprimerie offers a panorama of how printing and printed products have evolved over the centuries, from Gutenberg’s time through the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, until the appearance of photographic processes, electronics and the digital revolution. At a time when the irruption of digital technologies obliges us to reconsider the future contribution of printing to the progress of civilisation and democracy, and to reevaluate our understanding of its links with digital media, the opening of the Atelier-Musée Imprimerie represents a major contribution to the field of graphic heritage. So it was that the Atelier-Musée Imprimerie was officially inaugurated on the 24th October, a month after it opened its doors to the public, in the presence of over 800 guests who had made the journey to Malesherbes from all over France and beyond to be present at such an exceptional event: printers, publishers, graphic designers, printing historians, museums specialists, local and national political representatives, collectors, and friends and collaborators from the Loiret region. In the end however, the institutions rallied to what proved to be an unstoppable project! But if he was well-armed to deal with the endless technical and logistic complexities of such a project, he may well have wondered sometimes if he would succeed in the face of long periods of institutional indifference due to the vagaries of local and national politics. In the case of Jean-Paul Maury, his experience at the head of a major French – European even – printing firm doubtless provided him with the experience and the mettle to succeed. ![]() The creation of a museum of this size is no mean task at any time, whatever the circumstances. The flourishing industrial activity of Maury Imprimeurs has allowed Jean-Paul and Chantal Maury to devote a not inconsiderable budget to their dream of establishing a printing museum – a project which they have been promoting, sometimes against all odds, for over fifteen years. Jean-Paul Maury comes from a family of printers which has been active in the town of Millau in the Aveyron region of France since 1850, and whose current incarnation, based in Malesherbes, has for many years figured amongst the principal French printing groups with seven production sites and 1,300 employees. The Atelier-Musée Imprimerie is also unusual because it was created by the founder and CEO of one of France’s biggest industrial printing groups, Jean-Paul Maury, with the active complicity of his wife Chantal. ![]() Jean-Paul and Chantal Maury during the inauguration of the Atelier-Musée Imprimerie on the 24 October 2018. ![]()
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