(*Portrait
used with permission from Michael Sull’s Spencerian Script and Ornamental
Penmanship, Volume I.)
HW Kibbe
(1853-1905)
*The
following was taken from a 1905 Business Educator magazine.
Mr. H.
W. Kibbe, whose work during the past quarter of a century in penmanship and
engrossing has been so frequently seen in our penmanship journals, and whose
portrait which appears above for the first time in public print, land whose
death which occurred February 8th of the present year, which was announced in
the May Business Educator, was born in Somers, Conn., Jan. 4, 1853. Twenty-two
years later he completed the business course in Eastman College, Poughkeepsie,
N. Y., in which school lie was employed as assistant teacher in penmanship. In
1875 and '76 he taught mathematics and penmanship in Beatty College,
Belleville, Ont. In May of the Centennial Year he opened a studio of penmanship
and art work in Utica, N.Y., from which point he did quite an extensive
publishing business in those days. For many years at this place he gave
personal instruction in penmanship and artwork. He also taught penmanship in
the McCreary & Shields Business College of that city. About twenty years
ago he published "Kibbe's Chirographic Quarterly" and issued from
time to time Kibbe's Alphabets, etc. As an artist Mr. Kibbe was somewhat
mechanical, which was due to the fact that he had never received much, if any,
professional training. But his work possessed an individuality and distinctness
of which schooling would have robbed it more or less. As a penman, his writing
combined in enviable and well-balanced proportions the elements of accuracy and
facility of execution.
In 1890,
Mr. Kibbe went to Boston and opened an office for engrossing, in which city he
remained until his death, conducting a profitable business. His work improved
until the last, indicating that progress was his watchword. As he grew older
his work became more and more artistic. But what is so rare, his skill seemed
to remain unimpaired. Few men indeed possess the quality of nerve and muscle
control that he possessed, and few men, too, perhaps, are as temperate as was
he. His skill, however, was surpassed by his extreme modesty and true
sincerity. There was nothing of the blatant in his make-up, and he was too
retiring for his own professional good, for there were few people in our
profession who knew him well.
