The Scott Eder Gallery is proud to announce “Will Eisner’s 'A Contract with God' and Other Images,” an exhibition featuring original art, sketches and drawings from the title story of the groundbreaking graphic novel that forever changed comics. The show's opening is Friday, June 14^th, 2013.

Published in 1978, A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories centers around the struggles and ambitions of poor, struggling and largely Jewish tenement dwellers, stories that were very much informed by Eisner’s own New York City upbringing. The Depression-era stories are a combination of autobiographical elements and fiction. Widely considered to be the first commercially successful graphic novel, A Contract with God launched America’s fastest-growing literary genre.

The exhibition will mark the first time this art has been shown and offered for sale.

“With A Contract with God, Eisner changed the way everybody thought about comics. He went straight at the artists with it. All of a sudden we changed our outlook: I saw my work as something that would stay alive instead of being an ephemeral month-to-month event.”

—Frank Miller

“A Contract with God (is) the collection of realistic illustrated stories with which Eisner put himself again in the vanguard of the new wave of comics… the latest installments in one of the most distinctive bodies of work in comics, and indeed any narrative literature.”

           —The Guardian (London)

“Not only is Mr. Eisner regarded as a master sequential artist… but his graphic novels have made him the Eisenstein of the medium – his A Contract with God invented that genre with its publication in 1978. He is a graceful and consummate artist whose works offer… insight into the human condition.”

—Jewish Daily Forward

Will Eisner (1917-2005) was present at the birth of the comic book industry in the 1930s. At the age of 19, Eisner formed a “packaging shop” with partner Jerry Iger, employing future legends Jack Kirby, Bob Kane, Lou Fine, Bob Powell, George Tuska and many others who churned out strip art, pulp illustrations, and eventually comic books for eager audiences. Eisner originated and assigned such characters as Dollman, Blackhawk, and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.

In 1940 he created The Spirit, a masked crime-fighting vigilante, in a unique and innovative 16-page Sunday newspaper insert that ran in syndication for nearly 12 years, with a weekly circulation of five million readers. Not only was the format innovative, but Eisner used The Spirit as a vehicle for bold graphic experimentation and story-telling, setting a genre standard that few have matched. All the more astounding is that at the age of twenty-two he negotiated ownership of the property at a time when creator ownership of comics was unheard of.

Taking a temporary leave from The Spirit to serve as a Pentagon-based warrant officer during World War II, Eisner pioneered the instructional use of comics, creating inspirational and instructional posters and manuals. He continued to produce them for the U.S. Army post-war under civilian contract into the 1970s, along with educational comics for clients as diverse as General Motors and public elementary schools.

Eisner developed A Contract with God after being away from the comics industry. Inspired in part by autobiographical underground comics, Eisner's 1978 graphic novel centered on life in a fictional Bronx tenement at 55 Dropsie Aveue. The semi-autobiographical four-part book delves into religion, guilt, crime and sex, intentional forays into adult concepts and themes. As in The Spirit nearly four decades earlier, Eisner insisted that the work be published in an unusual (for comics) format: a square-bound book. With a conventional book format and content aimed at adults, Eisner was able to break the mainstream bookstore barrier that blocked pamphlet-format comic books. A Contract with God created immediate industry ripples, effectively starting the graphic novel revolution.

In his later years, Eisner went on to create nearly 20 more graphic novels, with translations into many languages. He also began teaching at New York City's School of Visual Arts and traveling the lecture circuit, spawning a new generation of ambitious comic book artists worldwide. The comics industry’s most prestigious annual award for excellence, The Eisner, is named after him.

Eisner himself received many worldwide honors and awards, including the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême (Europe's comics epicenter) and the second-ever Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture (2002). Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Kavalier and Clay is based in good part on Eisner. The father of the graphic novel died in 2005, but his talent will forever influence, inspire and entertain us.

Will Eisner’s A Contract with God art will be on display through August 15, 2013.

Copies of A Contract with God will be available for purchase through the gallery

For further inquiries please contact Scott Eder at scott@scottedergallery.com or 718-797-1100.

Scott Eder Gallery -- located in DUMBO -- is New York City's only gallery devoted exclusively to the art of comics.