Project Room
Laurence Evelyn Hyde (1914 - 1987)

“Words are capable of expressing very complicated and very subtle notions ... But for directness and universal interpretation, pictures, under certain conditions, are unrivalled. It really depends on what you want to say.” ~ Laurence Hyde, Afterword to Southern Cross

Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas, is a stunning wordless novel told in 118 wood engravings by the Canadian artist Laurence Hyde in protest to the tests of the hydrogen bomb made by the United States at the Bikini Atoll in 1946. The inspiration behind book was clearly political, and the book has been called "a political marker of the Cold War years". The high-contrast artwork of Southern Cross features dynamic curving lines uncommon in wood engraving and combines abstract imagery with realistic detail. Laurence took three years to hand carve the 118 wood engravings and in 1951 the entire collection were hand printed from the original wood blocks and published as a small limited edition by the Ward Ritchie Press in Los Angeles. Hyde dedicated the book to the Red Cross Societies and the Society of Friends. The book has since been republished twice in 2007: Drawn & Quarterly released a deluxe facsimile edition with additional essays by Hyde and an introduction by wordless novel historian David Beronä, and George Walker included Southern Cross in his anthology of wordless novels Graphic Witness (2014).