Gargantua: Chapter XXII - Les jeux
1942
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View on museum website →Medium
woodcut
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1964.8.1938
Art Historical Context
**Gargantua: Chapter XXII - Les jeux** by Bernard Reder, a 1942 woodcut from the National Gallery of Art's Rosenwald Collection, draws inspiration from François Rabelais' satirical 16th-century novel *Gargantua and Pantagruel*. This print illustrates Chapter XXII, "Les jeux" ("The Games"), capturing the boisterous, carnivalesque spirit of the giant protagonist's world. Created amid World War II, as Reder—a Polish-born Jewish artist exiled in New York—navigated global upheaval, the work reflects his fascination with folklore, primitivism, and humanist themes, blending Rabelais' irreverent humor...
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...