LOS ANGELES, CA.- This October the Hammer Museum presents seminal comic artist R. Crumb’s adaptation of the first book of the Old Testament, the Book of Genesis. Crumb has spent the last five years on this incredibly ambitious endeavor. The exhibition features 207 individual, blackand-white drawings incorporating every word from all fifty chapters, as well as a cover, title page, introduction and back cover. Each drawing contains six to eight comic panels illustrating the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, and more. Using his signature bawdy style, Crumb’s version of the Book of Genesis puts an entirely new twist on the Bible. This highly anticipated project has been building momentum over the last few years and it has established a huge fan base among comic and art lovers around the world.

　　For nearly fifty years R. Crumb has contributed a plethora of zany, outrageous, and riotous figures to the world of comics. His impact on the underground comic world is immeasurable and his drawings have been highly influential to countless artists working in the contemporary art field and commercially. Drawing from everyday events and characters, he tells stories of pathetic men (often modeled after himself), randy old men chasing exceptionally voluptuous women, and other odd characters including gurus, seers and talking animals. His stories illustrate the most basic human qualities: fragility, hubris, weakness, cruelty, paranoia, neuroses, fear, and shallowness. He is unabashed in his depictions of the lowest depths of misery and the dark sides of humanity, yet always maintains a sense of humor. Often criticized for being overtly sexual, violent, racist and misanthropic, he is steadfast in his convictions to share his perspective. Like a modern day Daumier, he keenly observes the hypocrisies and idiosyncrasies of human behavior with the sharp wit and cutting eye of a staunch critic.

　　Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Crumb began drawing comics as a young boy, influenced by his older brother Charles. In the early 1960s he drew cards for the American Greetings Corporation and in the late 1960s he traveled to New York, Chicago

【编辑：张瑜】