Song of the Sea

 

Gustave Baumann

  1881 - 1971 (biography)

1936  

color woodcut with aluminum leaf 

12 3/4 x 12 7/8" image 

pencil, lower right 

I 8-125 

titled, lower left 

Chamberlain 151; Baumann 114 

cream Zanders laid with the Hand & Heart watermark 

published 

artist 

AB703 

SOLD

Baumann's trip up the California coast in 1934 yielded several depictions of the Central coastline. "Song of the Sea" features not only the twisted limbs of the famous Monterey cypress that Baumann--among many artists--was keen to draw, but two sea lions in cobalt blue, delicately perched on the jagged shoreline rocks. In a letter to his daughter Ann he wrote, "Dear Ann, this is the sea lion singverein--sometimes a big wave washes the sea lions off their rocks and then another puts them on again but they sing no matter where they are..." (Chamberlain, p. 399, In a Modern Rendering: The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann")