Mountain Landscape

Otto William Bahl

Little information is found on the artist Otto William Bahl, though it is known that he was born in Indiana and he exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. In the 1920s he was employed as an artist for a firm in the famous Wrigley building. His career took an unknown turn after he and his sister, Rose, purchased a piece of property in Sevier County, Tennessee, in what would become the Great Smoky Mountains National Forest. After his marriage to Alice Farrington just six months later, the three relocated to this property and built a house - now registered as an historical home known as "Otto Bahl Place" - where they remained until 1951.

It is therefor assumed that this blockprint, created in 1946, is a depiction of the surroundings Bahl enjoyed during his time in Tennessee. He depicts a sunlit birch sapling bedecked in summer green, its roots curled around a rockpile. All around it are shadowed trees rendered in cool, dark blues and greens.

In 1955 the house was offically sold to the Parks Service; Otto and Alice by the had relocated to Monterey, California, where the lived for the remainder of their days.