Cherry Bloom

Gustave Baumann

The locale of this woodcut is Wyoming, New York, at "Hillside," the summer home and part-time artists' haven owned by Lydia Avery Cooley Ward, a noted Chicago socialite and influential arts patron. Baumann spent the summer of 1917 at Hillside as a teacher and had plans to open his Swanli Press studio there. As seen in the lower right of the print, he developed his "Swanli" chop for his color woodcuts. However, the decided against opening the studio and he abandoned the Swanli chop and other experimental chops in favor of his Hand and Heart chop, found on his later work.

As noted in Chamberlain's In a Modern Rendering: The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann, this image is from later in the first printing campaign and has a solid dark border, as was common early in his career, and for this impression he chose to stop using the small block that printed "No /100", and opted instead to number entirely in pencil. These variations provide insight into the developmental process of the artist as a printmaker as he is constantly searching for ways to create the best print he can.

Chamberlain quotes Ward on page 197 in regards to the view from her porch, as portayed in this image: "...Oh what ravishing beauty! I see it all through tiny cherry branches, stretching out from thier parents trees to make a wonder-screen whose beauty would surprise Japan... The russet fields come near and faintly veil the green that even now weaves the cover that will soon overshadow them. And the wind sings a low hymn to the approaching night.