My Garden by Gustave Baumann

My Garden by Gustave Baumann

My Garden

Gustave Baumann

Title

My Garden

 
Artist
Year
1924  
Technique
color woodcut 
Image Size
6 x 7 3/4" image 
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
NO 24 OF 100 
Annotations
titled in pencil, lower left 
Reference
Chamberlain 89, Baumann 45 
Paper
cream laid Zanders Bergisch Gladbach 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
AB4207 
Price
SOLD
Description

This impression is from the first edition from 1924, projected to be 100, with this, "No 24 of 100", the highest number found yet. It is printed in five colors in deep, autumnal colors on a Zanders Bergisch Gladbach paper. Baumann then printed a second edition between 1931-32, this using lighter, more summer-like colors, done in an edition of 125 on Zanders paper with his Hand-in-Heart watermark, which was completed.

This image was included by Baumann as one of twelve small color woodcuts as a portfolio he titled the "New Mexico Portfolio". Despite being a critical success, sales were few (there is only one known complete portofolio) and Baumann broke them up and began selling them individually.

Gustave Baumann loved flowers but had little time to tend his gardens despite Voltaire's exemplar, 'Il faut cultiver notre jardin', (We Must Cultivate our Garden) which hung above his press in Brown County, Indiana. Cataloguer Gala Chamberlain notes on p. 282 of In a Modern Rendering: The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raissoné.

'Ann Baumann often recounted the story about her father hosting his garden club. The club met at regular intervals in the members' gardens. With the approach of Baumann's turn as host, he discovered that his garden had not a flower in bloom because he had been tending his studio, not his plot. He went to work in a flurry of activity, and the members arrived at the appointed hour to find his garden filled with a profusion of colorful blooming flowers and the sun glinting off every plastic bloom and leaf.'(p. 282)

When it was tended, however, a garden of hollyhocks and marigolds was contained within a picket fence at his Canyon Road studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as seen in this color woodcut. Baumann loved flowers and created numerous sketches and tempera studies of flower heads and formal bouquets. The titles of his color woodcuts that have floral imagery include 'My Garden,' 'Tulips,' 'Marigolds,' 'Sunny Messengers,' and 'Zinnias'.