Go Behind the Scenes of Nashville's Hatch Show Print

Welcome to Hatch Show Print, a Nashville institution continuously in operation since 1879. Hatch Show Print is a printmaking and letterpress shop housed inside the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in downtown Nashville where today's printmakers use original press dies that are more than 100 years old.

The Hatch brothers, Charles and Herbert, were the sons of a Wisconsin printmaker who moved his family to Nashville in 1875. Four years later, the pair had their own print shop on Cherry Street (now known as Fourth Avenue), and their first job was a handbill advertising a speaking engagement by Henry Ward Beecher, a preacher and abolitionist who was passing through Nashville.

A June 1880 issue of the Nashville Banner newspaper — the original home of Hatch Show Print — advertised their services as "C.R. and H.H. Hatch Steam Book and Job Printers," offering to print "all manner of printing on the most reasonable terms."

Printing turned out to be a lucrative business for the Hatch brothers. There was no large format poster company in Nashville at the time they opened, but there was plenty of demand. Nashville was also within a day's drive of 75% of the US population and had easy transit access via rail and water. All things considered, it was a convenient place to get a poster printed, especially for passing artists and performers.

The shop eventually zeroed in on entertainment posters. Throughout the years, their clients have included Collective Soul, Elvis Presley, Elvis Costello, Dolly Parton, Orville Peck and Aretha Franklin.

“It’s actually easier to name the people that we haven’t worked with enough quite frankly," says Celene Aubrey, director and shop manager at Hatch Show Print.