In the summer of 1942, the artist Gustav Wolf left the metropolis of New York, which he so hated, and moved to the countryside. His friend, the emigrant Jacob Picard, had advised him to come to Cummington, Massachusetts. Not only did Cummington have a vital community of European emigrants, it also was home to the Cummington Press, a respected publisher of book art. Wolf soon made himself useful there. He designed a series of woodcuts to accompany the text in an edition of the biblical story of Job.

The Old Testament figure of Job is cast into suffering and unhappiness because of his pious fear of the devil. Job cannot understand the hostility of the devil and finds it unbearable. He nevertheless does not give up his belief in God's justice. Wolf depicted the story of Job the suffering Jew, which was close to his own state of mind in exile, in 32 woodcuts. The prints were done in reddish colour, set in the middle of the black text. Wolf depicted the climax of the narrative in the frontispiece. In the illustration, Job, with his mouth wide open, screams out all his pain over the injustice that has befallen him.

The graphic artist worked on the story of Job in the winter of 1943/44 under the most primitive living conditions, but with enthusiasm. In 1944 the American Institute of Graphic Arts chose the finished publication The Book of Job as one of its 50 best books of the year. The artistic and typographical immensely complicated work did not yield financial reward for Wolf, however.