Wash Barnes Cabin

Gustave Baumann

Washington Barnes Cabin is one of five large format color woodcuts depicting scenic Brown County, Indiana. The log cabin was the residence of Wash and Mary Barnes, both very colorful characters. Baumann wrote a picturesque description of the people and the place: “Social amenities had to be observed with Mother Barnes, who didn’t mind artists in fact she was greatly flattered when they came to paint her cabin but she had an undying hate for photographers especially when they snapped her picture unbeknown to her and then compounded the error by sending her a print of it….The place was a confusion of pictures. There was a split-shingle roof with a chimney that would indicate a huge fireplace, a garden that could hardly contain the flowers within the fence. A lean cow ambled by to somewhere. To give the place a semblance of order a long line of geese marched by scattering the chickens that were pecking around while I with my little Brownie Camera under my arm casually snapped a picture of Mother Barnes, when Wash Barnes himself appeared and I found myself invited for lunch with the family.”