Tom's Typewriters Evoke a Bygone Era of Clackety Keys

The ubiquitous typewriter. Invented in 1868, it’s one of those technologies that revolutionized the sharing of information in an important and major way and came to define modern life throughout the 20th century. From term papers and resumes to reports and letters, most every household in the U.S. had one and every professional office certainly had several.

It was a machine that represented the sound of journalists working in busy newsrooms and learning to type was a coming of age rite back in the days when it was considered vital, specifically for girls, who were told that if they mastered the skill in high school they would secure gainful clerical employment down the road.

But like the record player, the typewriter is now an analogue relic of the past. The elegant business machine faded quickly into obscurity more than a quarter century ago when it was supplanted by quieter, digital means of conveying messages. Though typing is still a useful skill to possess, today it is performed exclusively on computers and smart phones — no more White Out needed — and with the rise of voice dictation, there’s no need to even place fingers on keyboard at all.

Well, it turns out that everything old is intriguing again — and not just record players. Currently, there is an exhibition at The Church in Sag Harbor that is a throwback and all about celebrating these utilitarian devices in their glory. “Some of Tom’s Typewriters: From the Collection of Tom Hanks” is a show featuring 35 machines owned by the famed actor, who is an avid fan of the old manual style of typewriter. The typewriters in the show date as far back as 1900 and include some models still in production today. There are also a couple of important electric models on view as well.

The installation was designed by creative director Simon Doonan, who was tapped for the job by The Church co-founder Eric Fischl. Doonan, who for decades created the designs for museum installations and the window displays at Barney’s, knows Fischl from a Tai Chi group that meets on Shelter Island, where Doonan lives. Because he comes with a strong background in telling stories through visual displays, Fischl felt he was just the man for the job.

“Eric said, ‘We’re planning on doing this thing, do you want to be the designer?’” Doonan said. “It’s a real display and has to be not too academic, but fun and appealing with respect to the material. It was very serendipitous.”

When asked how some of Tom Hanks’s typewriters happened to find their way to The Church for this show, Doonan explains: “Eric and Tom know each other and I guess they talked about it. Some guys, like rock musicians or movie stars, go to thrift shops and buy guitars. That’s a guy habit — collecting guitars, though I’m sure Chrissie Hynde does it too.

“But for Tom, it’s not guitars, it’s typewriters,” he continued. “It’s a real fascination and I think he finds them poignant and soulful. They’re amazing and such a paradoxical thing. They are immensely simple and also immensely complicated, weirdly modern and incredibly clap trappy. They’re fascinating.”

When considering the paradox of the typewriter, it’s natural to recall the office scenes in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 film “Brazil,” where Department of Records workers use old timey manual typewriters, but with a futuristic twist in the form of a steampunk-inspired magnification screen placed in front of them.

“When putting this installation together, I thought about that scene in ‘Brazil,’” Doonan confessed. “The sound track of the 20th century is the clacking of typewriters, it was such a huge part of progress, though they started in the 19th century.”

For the British-born Doonan, the sound of typewriters also represents his childhood, given that his parents both worked on them.

“When I went to high school, they taught typing and in the first room, this was in ’63 or ’64, the girls with their beehives were banging away on typewriters,” Doonan said. “ We boys had to do woodwork and metalwork. I said, ‘Can’t I go dinging and clacking with the girls?’”

Though it’s true that typing eventually became “women’s work,” in the early days typists tended to be men, as were journalists who, having not taken typing in high school, often wrote their copy on typewriters using just two fingers. No doubt many still do.

“My mom and dad worked in the typing pool,” Doonan said. “I grew up with the clacking of typewriters, and if not for that, they would’ve been doing factory work.

“My mom was trained as an electrician in the war and she came back from war intending to be an electrician,” he added. “But they weren’t giving those jobs to women. They got shafted and that’s when you saw woman moving towards typing.”

In addition to the typewriters themselves, also rounding out the exhibition, in pure Doonan style, are visuals that complement the theme, though there are not nearly as many as Doonan initially thought he would need given the quality of the typewriters.

“I thought I’d need window dressing, but when you see what Tom sent, it’s an exquisitely curated number of his typewriters. He has 300 and what he sent us, they are wonderfully diverse. There’s an Olivetti Valentine, an all red one that’s super groovy. There’s a real groovy range, right to the Mad Men era.

“There are also typewriters from the early 20th century — these fabulously gothic looking ominous scary machines, so there’s a really great range.”

There’s even a Swintec typewriter on view that boasts a clear plastic case, a model preferred by prisons because inmates can’t hide contraband inside them. Among those who have published work from prison is journalist John J. Lennon, who has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times and Esquire.

“They’re some early ones — some with Art Nouveau graphics, and then these ones that look almost futuristic with Lucite and Plexi covers,” Doonan said. “And it has taken a while to figure out how to install it, we went back and forth over the summer.

“I wanted to make it fun for people,” he added. “We actually have typewriters that kids can bang around on and throw the carriage. It’s like driving a Model T.”

In terms of the selection of the specific typewriters that are included in the show, Doonan said that the task was entrusted to Tom Hanks and his associates.

“They are a really great and fascinating range,” Doonan said. “Tom’s written a book of short stories called ‘Uncommon Type,’ and each story is typewriter themed. We had a Zoom call with him. He was engaging and charming. He said his handwriting has degenerated into illegibility, so he uses his typewriter to write everything from shopping lists to notes.”

Placing typewriters on view for exhibition may seem like a fairly straightforward task, but Doonan found that the installation for this show did involve a good deal of creative thinking, given that many of the typewriters needed to be protected.

“Workers would cover them at the end of the day because dust was not good for a typewriter. I had to figure out ways to make them visual and enchanting and still protect them from dust and theft. They are really desirable objets d’arte,” said Doonan. “Initially, I thought maybe I’d try to build a giant window, but that didn’t solve the dust problem. So where we landed took a while — it wasn’t quite as simple as you might imagine. I arranged and tweaked it, that’s very much the fun part. The holiday windows at Barney’s took six weeks to stage and this has also been a lot of planning.”

In terms of the visual aids that make up the rest of the installation, included in the show is a banner reading “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” a pangram that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once (presumably to test the workability of the keys and the typist’s skill). Another pangram that Doonan discovered in the course of designing the show is a bit darker, but much cooler — “Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.”

“We have these typing exercises emblazoned on the walls of The Church,” Doonan said. “They’re engaging and fun and inspirational. I think about the window displays at Barney’s. We used a fair amount of typewriters over the years, including in the Norman Mailer window.”

Also on prominent display in the show is the famous phrase that Jack Nicholson (as Jack Torrance) typed throughout the winter in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film “The Shining” when he was holed up at The Overlook Hotel with Shelley Duval, aka his long suffering wife, Wendy, and their creepy son, Danny. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy…” is typed repeatedly on multi-colored sheets of paper that are suspended over a vitrine containing several of the typewriters.

“It’s weird how Jack Nicholson is the first thing people think of,” he said. “Another fabulous element you’ll love, I’ve been collecting movie clips where typewriters are incorporated. There’s the one with Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ and a Busby Berkeley clip of Ruby Keeler and Lee Dixon dancing on the typewriter keys. There’s no shortage of iconic movie moments. There’s also Jane Fonda in ‘Julia.’ She’s drinking and typing and getting increasingly frustrated and throws the typewriter out of the window. A writer friend said the reason we all drank is because it was such a pain to retype and retype screenplays. Many a writer was a drinker.”

Among the video offerings on view in the show is “Some Typewriter Video Nostalgia,” which presents selected clips from films and advertising selected by Doonan and Fischl. Also playing is Ariel Avissar’s 2021 piece “Supercut.” The short video runs about two minutes and features images from films like “Zodiac,” “Stranger Than Fiction” and “Citizen Kane,” among others. The video is set to Leroy Anderson’s jaunty score “The Typewriter,” naturally.

Another thing that Doonan is very excited about are the incredible typewriter print ads that he has come across and has included in the exhibition.

“As advertising, it’s its own magnificent genre,” Doonan said. “We went through and picked out the most evocative, crazy ads that are surreal and colorful. Early ones were in black and white. But Remington, Royal, Olivetti, as they competed with each other their advertising was superb — Olivetti in particular.”

While all 35 typewriters in the show are installed on the upper floor of The Church, on the main level is an intimate, concurrent exhibition entitled “Some Odes: Sam Messer with Paul Auster, Eleanor Gaver, Denis Johnson and Sharon Olds.” The small-scale assemblage focuses on the confluence of ideas between artists and artistic media as they flow individually and within an artistic community. The typewriter figures prominently in the works on view.

For more than two decades, artist Sam Messer has created over 200 paintings of typewriters, which began as a reflection on Paul Auster’s relationship to his machine, and over time has evolved as “a form that innately represents language, communication between peoples, its association with both facts and fiction, the place where stories are recorded and invented,” according to Messer. In addition to paintings and prints by Messer, the exhibition includes typed and handwritten notes by Auster and Johnson, as well as a type-set print by Sharon Olds created in dialogue with Messer. A large format “typewriter” painting features Messer’s wife Eleanor Gaver, a filmmaker with whom he has shared creative dialogue for more than 40 years.

“These machines — strange, complex but also ridiculously simple — have so much to teach us about history and culture,” noted Doonan in a release about the show. “This is why I leapt at the chance to design this installation … After all, the soundtrack of the 20th Century is the magical clacking and pinging of a typewriter. Clack, clack, clack … ping!”

“Some of Tom’s Typewriters” and “Some Odes” opened at The Church on January 12 and both shows will remain on view through March 10. Several other programs will be offered in conjunction with the exhibitions. Visit thechurchsagharbor.org for details. The Church is at 48 Madison Street in Sag Harbor.