REID -The Life of Christ 1930

James Reid’s only wordless publication, The Life of Christ in Woodcuts, with 78 wood engravings, is not a story; it only illustrates highlights from the New Testament scripture.

Without knowing the story in advance, a viewer would not be able to explain the story based on the images alone.

UK 1930 Publication

This woodcut novel, by James Reid, a Philadelphia illustrator of children’s books, depicts the biblical life of Christ rendered with traditional themes and characters that are immediately recognized by readers familiar with Christian culture. This traditional approach was far from the intense and unconventional artistic tone of the time, expressed by artists like Georges Rouault, whose series of paintings called Miserere (1914-27) exhibited an Expressionist and primitive feeling for Christ the Messiah. It is highly unlikely that a reader unfamiliar with Christian culture could interpret this tale, since the pictures in Reid’s book depend on the understanding of the gospels from an Anglo-Christian perspective. Without this knowledge of Christian culture, the narrative would be open to broader interpretation. Historically, the connection of the life of Christ presented in Reid’s woodcuts has a similarity to the early fifteenth-century depiction of the gospels in woodcuts.

David Beronä in Wordless Novels in Woodcuts; PRINT QUARTERLY, XX, 2OO3, p 61-73 at p. 69:

While Beronä referred to The Life of Christ as a “woodcut novel” in the above quote, in his book, Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels. New York: Abrams Books, 2008, he excluded it along with all other biblical works.

James Colbert Reid (1907 – 1989)

Born in Philadelphia, James Reid completed a four-year course at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, where he studied illustration under Thornton Oakley, a disciple of the Brandywine School made famous by N. C. Wyeth. In 1930, Reid produced seventy-eight wood engravings for The Life of Christ in Woodcuts and in 1931 produced thirty wood engravings for The Song of Songs, both published by Farrar & Rinehart of New York. Because of the deepening economic depression, Reid turned to commercial art for his livelihood, producing work for many corporations in the metropolitan Philadelphia region. He nonetheless continued as an active printmaker on a more limited basis in his later years.

As per Robert Strossi, Briar Hill Gallery

Philadelphia-born illustrator James Reid gained notoriety for his woodcut illustrations in the years just prior to the Great Depression. His work was regarded as highly sophisticated and emotive. This work, published by the Farrar & Rinehart publishing house in New York, had very good commercial success. His second book, an illustration of the Song of Songs, did not fare well in the declining economy, and so Reid did not produce any more illustrated books. He worked successfully as a commercial artist for the rest of his life.

La Salle University, in reviewing The Life of Christ