Lynd Ward (1905-1985), Künstler und Geschichtenerzähler.
Seine sechs wortlosen Romane (
wordless novels), kürzlich wiederentdeckt und teilweise neu aufgelegt, entstanden in einer kurzen Phase.
Zitat:
Novels in woodcuts
Ward is known for his wordless novels told entirely through dramatic wood engravings. Ward's first work, Gods' Man (1929), uses a blend of Art Deco and Expressionist styles to tell the story of an artist's struggle with his craft, his seduction and subsequent abuse by money and power, and his escape to innocence. Ward, in employing the concept of the wordless pictorial narrative, acknowledged as his predecessors the European artists Frans Masereel and Otto Nückel. Released the week of the 1929 stock market crash, Gods' Man would continue to exert influence well beyond the Depression era, becoming an important source of inspiration for Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg.[14]
Ward produced six wood engraving novels over the next eight years, including:
Gods' Man (1929)
Madman's Drum (1930)
Wild Pilgrimage (1932)
Prelude to a Million Years (1933)
Song Without Words (1936)
Vertigo (1937)
Ward left one more wordless novel partially completed at the time of his death in 1985. The 26 completed wood engravings (out of a planned total of 44) were published in a limited edition in 2001, under the title Lynd Ward's Last, Unfinished, Wordless Novel.[15]
He also produced a wordless story for children, The Silver Pony, which is told entirely in black, white and shades of gray painted illustrations; it was published in 1973.
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