Typewriters from the storied collection of actor Tom Hanks will start the new year in Sag Harbor, as Barneys creative director, author, and Shelter Island resident Simon Doonan brings to life “Some of Tom’s Typewriters.” The show opens January 11, 2025, at the Church Sag Harbor, established by artists April Gornik and Eric Fischl, marking the latest installment in their community art center’s fascination with “the life of things,” a release stated, following whimsical shows around “material culture” exploring objects like bikes and guitars.

Fischl reached out to Hanks—with whom he shares friends—about staging a show after seeing the actor’s 2016 film California Typewriter, the Church’s executive director Sheri Pasquarella told me over email. Hanks has selected 35 specimens spanning the typewriter’s existence which Doonan will arrange into an installation. “Simon was initially sought because of his amazing and iconic way of bringing life to objects through ingenious, often low-fi, techniques that are resonant with our own approach,” Pasquarella said.

A Robotron typewriter in Tom Hanks’s collection. Photo courtesy of the Collection of Tom Hanks / The Church, Sag Harbor.

“The exquisite edit of the Tom Hanks typewriter collection will delight visitors of all ages,” Doonan, whose mother was a typist, reads the release. “These machines—strange, complex but also ridiculously simple—have so much to teach us about history and culture. This is why I leapt at the chance to design this installation. My goal is to spotlight the charm, engineering majesty, and social/historical [meaning] of these fascinating artifacts. After all, the soundtrack of the 20th century is the magical clacking and pinging of a typewriter. Clack, clack, clack… ping!”

A Remington typewriter in Tom Hanks’s collection. Photo courtesy of the Collection of Tom Hanks / The Church, Sag Harbor.

As the story goes, Hanks received his first typewriter from a friend who had upgraded to a newer model. When Hanks took that typewriter to get serviced in 1978, the Cleveland repair shop associate told him not to bother.

“He explained to me that I was in possession of a toy,” Hanks recalled in one interview. “It was a thing that looked like a typewriter but it was made of plastic. It was a hunk of junk. It was badly designed, and poorly manufactured.” Hanks left with a new model—and perspective. “That guy altered my concept of the place a typewriter can hold in your life,” the actor told NPR.

A Cole Steel typewriter in Tom Hanks’s collection. Photo courtesy of the Collection of Tom Hanks / The Church, Sag Harbor.

Hanks uses typewriters for thank you notes and to-do lists. In 2017, he wrote a book of short stories centered on these analog appliances, and he has been known to make room in his collection by sending pieces of it to unwitting, delighted strangers. In 2012, a podcast got Hanks to appear by sending him a spiffy 1934 Corona Smith. In 2018, Hanks even responded to a high schooler who wrote to him upon reading his book by sending her a typewriter—and a hand-typed letter wishing her the best while using it.

Although further specifics about “Some of Tom’s Typewriters” are still in the works, Pasquarella promised that “a bold emphasis on color and the role of the typewriter in advertising, popular culture, and film [will] all figure heavily into the design of the show and exhibition space.”