Gargantua: Chapter XXV
probably 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
1964.8.1945
Art Historical Context
**Gargantua: ChapterV** by Bernard Reder is a compelling woodcut, likely created around 194 and housed in the National Gallery of's Rosenwald Collection. This print belongs to the CG-W department and is classified within a portfolio, suggesting it forms part of a thematic series inspired by François Rabelais' satirical 16th-century novel *argantua and Pantuel*. Reder, an Austrian-born artist who emigrated to the United States, channeled the book's grotesque humor and social critique into bold visual form during the tumultuous years of World War II. Woodcuts like this one highlight the medium'...
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...