Plum and Peach Bloom

Gustave Baumann

Plum and Peach Bloom was one of five oversize color woodcuts produced by Baumann when he lived in Nashville, Brown County, Indiana. Color woodcuts of this size were rare, owing to the difficulty of finding consistent grain in the wood, of cutting, and of registration. A photograph of Baumann rolling ink onto a wood block during the printing of The Mill Pond is illustrated on page 6 of In A Modern Rendering The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné.

His hope was to decorate the walls of local schoolhouses with his color woodcuts but Brown County could not afford the products of his studio. Baumann was an avid photographer, often using his shots as direct references for his woodcuts, and in the Baumann Archive is a brownie photograph of the two children carrying a bucket.

Plum and Peach Bloom was first printed in 1912 but the printing of twenty impressions spanned two years. This impression bears Baumann’s Hand-in-Heart Chop which clearly dates it to 1914.