Song of the Sea (with the cancelled black block)

Gustave Baumann

In this composition Baumann offset the twisted cypress trees and the barking sea lions on the rocks against a backdrop of aluminum leaf. The palette was limited to black and blue and, included with this impression of Song of the Sea, is the black block which carries most of the imagery. He editioned this impression with a "I", indicating it was from the first printing campaign, number 34 from a proposed total edition of 125. The highest number found was 37-125, indicating that he did not print out the full edition. To print the silver background Baumann printed a mastic and, when it got tacky, he hand applied aluminum leaf, which would not tarnish like silver leaf.

Gustave Baumann took long road trips exploring new sketching grounds for his color woodcuts. Beginning in 1927, he made the first of numerous trips through the desert to Southern California from where he would drive up the coastline. His favorite stopover seems to have been the village of Laguna where he camped for several days across the road from the Pacific Ocean. This allowed him to explore the coastline around Carmel and Monterey.

On one of these trips he created a graphite sketch of the Monterey Cypresses clinging to the rocky shoreline and in 1936 he translated that sketch into his color woodcut Monterey Cypress. He must have loved the imagery as within the same year he enlarged his image and produced Song of Sea.