Morning in Mexico

 

Gustave Baumann

  1881 - 1971 (biography)

1934  

color woodcut 

12 1/4 x 13 3/8" image 

pencil, lower right 

2-120 I 

titled, lower left; editioned in the dotted border, lower left; artist annotation in lower left margin: "this is the discarded first cutting and has several good things I lost in the later. Why block cutters go crazy." 

Chamberlain 143.1 (this impression illustrated on page 384 of In A Modern Rendering The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann; Baumann 107 

cream Zanders laid with the Hand-in-Heart watermark 

 

 

AB3005 

$15,000.00 

From the first edition of a projected size of 120, but with only four known impressions--which is perhaps explained by this rare, humorous glimpse into the working mind of the artist: in the lower left margin Baumann has noted in pencil, "this is the discarded first printing and has several good things I lost in the later. Why block cutters go crazy."

This image depicts an experience from Baumann's stay in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In a letter he wrote to his wife Jane he narrates the scene: "No matter how good the ointment there is always a fly in it--we settled down to a good night's rest--and at FOUR a.m. the seven garrisons in the town began to Pah Pah de Pah, sometimes singly and sometimes in unison...at breakfast they told us there had been more bugling than usual because there had been an execution. Gosh, it's six p.m. and there they go again, four of em along with the cathedral bells...the world is all Pah Pah de Pah and ding dong ding..." (p. 385, In a Modern Rendering: The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann)