Gargantua: Chapter XIII
1942
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
woodcut
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1964.8.1934
Art Historical Context
**Gargantua: XIII** is a striking woodcut from Bernard Red 1942 portfolio inspired by François Rabelais' satirical novel *Gargantua and Pantuel*. Reder, a Polish-born artist who fled Europe for New York in 1935 amid rising turmoil, channeled the book's grotesque humor and social critique into bold prints. Created during World War II, this chapter illustration captures the era's anxieties through Rabelais' larger-than-life giant, blending fantasy with pointed commentary on excess and folly. Woodcuts like this one highlight Reder's mastery of the medium's raw power: carved into wood blocks and ...
About the Artist
Bernard Reder
Bernard Reder (1897–1963), born in Czernowitz, Bukovina—then part of Austria-Hungary and a vibrant center of Jewish and Hasidic culture—was the son of a Jewish innkeeper. At age four, he began drawing, but World War I interrupted his youth when, at 17, he was conscripted into the Austrian army and served in the trenches. After the war, Reder enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, studying...