Jack Gartner served an apprenticeship as a compositor at the Advocate Press, and also studied printing at the Working Men's College, Melbourne. He developed an interest in printing history and fine printing, and at seventeen purchased a small hand press, with which he produced some small hand-set works. The establishment of the Hawthorn Press as a private press at his home in Hawthorn helped build him a reputation as a fine printer. Gartner began the Victorian branch the Printing Industry Craftsmen of Australia and he was very active in that association for more than 30 years, and he was a founding member of a number of other literary, publishing, and bibliographical societies. Gartner was also very active and prominent in numismatic societies in Victoria, Tasmania and internationally. For further information, see Michael Denholm's Small Press Publishing in Australia in the Early 1970's.
