Vanity (from The Seven Deadly Sins)

James Todd

James Todd's woodcut series meditating on the Seven Deadly Sins draws from satirical political cartoonists and illustrators of time immemorial. Aspects of Jose Posada, Daumier, and even the more somber Goya crop up in between the fine lines of his compositions.

In his woodcut "Vanity," the folly of politicians and their egoistic endeavors is illuminated by the artist's keen eye and sharp chisel. They are draped in the unwavering banner of performative patriotism (success), and hounded by symbolic death (failure). Death itself stands proudly alongside its clueless prey, saluting the American flag with the flair of any Vaudevillian performer. What "Vanity" lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in humor.

James Gilbert Todd, painter, printmaker, illustrator, and educator, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on October 12, 1937. Todd attended the College of Great Falls, Montana from 1956 to 1959, and then continued his studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. Todd received his MFA in painting and printmaking in 1970 from the University of Montana. He taught in Western Germany between 1965 and 1968, but returned to Montana where was Professor of Humanities at the University of Montana from 1971-80, and then Professor of Art from 1980-2000 when he retired. He lived over forty years in Missoula, Montana in the Northwest Rocky Mountains.

Todd was a member of the Association Jean Chieze in France, the Wood Engravers Network in the United States, the Society of Wood Engravers and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in the United Kingdom. He illustrated the books, A Radiant Map of the World by Rick Newby, Still Another Day by Pablo Neruda, and Woman Who Lives in the Earth by Swain Wolfe. His work is in the collections of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture; the Montana Historical Society; the Jiangsu Provincial Fine Arts Museum in China; the Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts; the Oaxaca Museum in Mexico; the Regensburg Museum, Germany; and the Ashmolean Museum in England.

James Gilbert Todd died on April 27, 2025 in Missoula, Montana.