Lynd Ward: A Centennial Appreciation

Note how Ward's use of a rhythmic pattern in the gabled roofs, and the fluid forms of the trees, are reminiscent of "Two gentlemen of Leipzig."

Before he turned to wood engraving during his trip to Europe 1927, Lynd Ward was an accomplished artist and illustrator in other media. He had honed his talents as editor-in-chief and frequent illustrator for the Columbia Jester, a student-published arts, literary, and criticism magazine at Columbia University that often reflected the Asian-influenced "Art Deco" styles of the time. This cover illustration by Ward for the May 1925 issue resembles the style for the Prince Bantam illustration.

For the book by Llewelyn Powys

Ward was a founding member of Equinox Press, a small coöperative that produced limited editions featuring original, block-printed illustrations of volumes with socially or artistically oriented themes during the Depression years. Other publications by Equinox included volumes of poetry by Thomas Mann, a novel about Communist Labor Party founder John Reed, and Ward's third wood-engraved, wordless novel, Prelude to a Million Years (1933).

Also shown in the exhibition:
Now That the Gods Are Dead, with four wood engravings by Lynd Ward. Copy 230 of an edition of 400 signed by author and artist.
Georgetown University Library, Special Collections.

For the book by François Rabelais, translated by Jacques LeClercq

Also shown in the exhibition:
A History of Book Illustration; the illuminated manuscript and the printed book, by David Bland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), with frontispiece illustration for Gargantua and Pantagruel, page 396.

Plate IX from Moriae encomium, or, The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus, translated by Harry Carter.

"By citing sixty statutes in a breath, none relevant, piling precedent on precedent, and taking opinions on opinions, they contrive to make their branch of knowledge appear the most difficult." [printed in red on tissue guard]

(All ten copper mezzotint plates for The Praise of Folly, as well as proofs from them, are in the Georgetown University Library Special Collections Division.)

Also shown in the exhibition:
Moriae Encomium, or, The Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus (New York: Limited Editions Club, 1943). This limited edition includes ten original mezzotint prints, as well as Ward's marginal "glosses" in red. Lent by Penelope C. and George M. Barringer.

This print won a purchase prize of $100 at the sixth national exhibition of prints at the Library of Congress in 1948.

Clouded Over was one of the thirty wood engravings included in Lynd Ward's solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in 1949. Curator of the Division of Graphic Arts Jacob Kainen wrote this complimentary letter. (Kainen also was an accomplished woodblock artist; the Georgetown University Library has a strong collection of his work.)

Also shown in the exhibition:

• Ward's work also was praised handsomely in a review from The Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.; 5 June 1949).
• American Prize Prints of the Twentieth Century, by Albert Reese (New York: American Artists Group, 1949), with Clouded Over reproduced on page 206.

Also shown in the exhibition:
Bibliognost, Vol. II, No. II, ed. Denis Carbonneau (New York: Three Mountain Press), May 1976. Special Lynd Ward issue with Lion and Lamb reproduced on cover.