Woodland Meadows

Gustave Baumann

From the second edition whose exact printing date is not stated; however, the use of the Hand-In-Heart watermarked paper suggests this edition was done in the 1930s (Chamberlain, p. 203). Baumann has omitted the 1917 edition's line border and replaced it with the dotted border, and the greens are more vibrant.

In July of 1917 Baumann spent a brief teaching stint in New York in the town of Wyoming, staying at the summer home of Lydia Avery Coolney Ward. A Chiacgo-based writer, socialite, and widely influential arts patron, Ward opened the doors of the sprawling Greek Revival mansion to artists from early July to early August. It wasn't a planned teaching position: Baumann had first moved to Westport, Connecticut earlier that year to try his hand at art colony living. But the invitation, offered by Ward in 1915, to teach art and toy making at the grand home set in a lush, wild wood was too tempting. Baumann was drawn to the landscape there, as seen in "Woodland Meadows," capturing the sultry greens and yellows of an upstate New York summer, horses lounging in the cool shade of the tree canopy.

Nancy E. Green writes about Baumann's stay in New York in her essay "Deftness, Soul, and a Gypsy Instinct" in Chamberlain's catalogue raisonne In a Modern Rendering: The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann.