Gustave Baumann

Gustave Baumann Color Woodblock - Rancho de Taos

1930

Taos Artist Howard Cook original woodcut print, 1927. Title: “Hopi House.” Duffy #47. Signed in pencil lower right. Image size: 8"h x 8"w. Paper size: 10 x 8 3/4. Mat size: 20 x 16....

This beautiful, limited edition original color woodblock is by the famous Showa Shin Hanga woodblock master Clifton Karhu (1927-2007). It bears the original frame and has a label on the back from a Tokyo gallery. The work is a beautiful impression with rich color. It and the frame are in excellent condition. The print measures 16 x 16 inches. The frame is 23 ½ x 23 ½ inches. It is numbered lower left as AP5 - Artist Proof #5 and is pencil signed and dated ‘74 lower right. An American of Finnish descent, Clifton Karhu was born in Minnesota in 1927. Raised together with his twin brother Raymond, Karhu was the son of painters Arne and Anna Karhu. After his graduation in 1946 he served in the military at an American Navy base in Japan. Returning to America following his military service in 1950, Karhu enrolled at the Minneapolis School of Art but quit two years later to pursue missionary work as a Lutheran minister. Karhu left the missionary work in 1958 and chose to move his new family to Gifu City, a small provincial town northwest of Kyoto, Japan where he set about returning to his art. Karhu soon found local success in 1961; obtaining first prize at the Chubu Taiheijo Bijutsu Kyokai Ten (The Middle Pacific Art Group Exhibition) and fixing his first single, professional exhibition at the Shin Gifu Gallery. In hopes of providing their three children with an international education, Karhu settled in Kyoto in 1963. The next few years proved heavily influential in Karhu’s work. Arguably forming the foundation for all his future success, Karhu found tutelage under recognized woodblock artist and gallery owner Tetsuo Yamada and colour theorist Stanton Macdonald-Wright. Responsible for shifting Karhu’s artistic doubts, Karhu proceeded to fulfill a very successful career in woodblock printing - carving his own works largely by himself. Clifton Karhu passed away in 2007 after an illustrious career that saw him viewed and celebrated as a local Kyoto celebrity, as well as having exhibited widely in many countries around the world. His woodblock prints have been collected by many famous museums including the Tokyo Modern Art...

Gustave Baumann, 'Taos Placita', color woodcut, 1947, edition 125. Baumann 132. Signed, titled, and numbered '20-125' in pencil; with the artist’s Hand-in-Heart chop. A superb, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on fibrous oatmeal wove paper; the full sheet with margins (2 to 3 1/8 inches); slight rippling at the left sheet edge, in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 5/8 x 11 1/4 inches (244 x 286 mm); sheet size 13 1/4 x 17 inches (337 x 432 mm). Collections: Harwood Museum of Art, New Mexico Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Scottsdale Art Museum, Wichita Art Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST Gustave Baumann (1881-1971) was a renowned printmaker and a leading figure of the American color woodcut revival whose exquisite craftsmanship and vibrant imagery captured the essence of the Southwest. "A brilliant printmaker, Baumann brought to the medium a full mastery of the craft of woodworking that he acquired from his father, a German cabinetmaker. This craftsmanship was coupled with a strong artistic training that resulted in the handsome objects we see in the exhibition today. After discovering New Mexico in 1918, Baumann began to explore in his woodblock prints of this period the light. color, and architectural forms of that landscape. His prints of this period are among the most beautiful and poetic images of the American West." —Lewis I. Sharp, Director, Denver Art Museum Baumann, the son of a craftsman, immigrated to the United States from Germany with his family when he was ten, settling in Chicago. From 1897 to 1904, he studied in the evenings at the Art Institute of Chicago, working in a commercial printmaking shop during the day. In 1905, he returned to Germany to attend the Kunstwerbe Schule in Munich, where he decided on a career in printmaking. He returned to Chicago in 1906 and worked for a few years as a graphic designer of labels. Baumann made his first prints in 1909 and exhibited them at the Art Institute of Chicago the following year. In 1910, he moved to the artists’ colony in Nashville, Indiana, where he explored the creative and commercial possibilities of a career as a printmaker. In 1915, he exhibited his color woodcuts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, winning the gold medal. Among Baumann’s ongoing commercial activities was his work for the Packard Motor Car Company from 1914 to 1920 where he produced designs, illustrations, and color woodcuts until 1923. In 1919, Baumann’s printmaking work dominated the important exhibition of American color woodcuts at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Twenty-six of his prints were included, far more than the works of any other artist. A set of his blocks, a preparatory drawing, and seven progressive proofs complemented the exhibition. That same year, Baumann worked in New York and, over the summer, in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His airy images of Cape Cod employed soft, pastel colors and occasionally showed the influence of the white-line woodcut technique. Many of his Chicago artist friends had traveled to the southwest, and Baumann became intrigued by their paintings, souvenirs, and stories of an exotic place named Taos, New Mexico. In the summer of 1918, he spent the summer in Taos sketching and painting before visiting Santa Fe. Paul Walter, the director of the Museum of New Mexico, offered him a studio in the museum's basement. Inspired by the rugged beauty of the Southwest—the vibrant colors and dramatic landscapes of the region became a central theme in his work, influencing his artistic style and subject matter for the remainder of his career. Later in the decade, he traveled to the West Coast and made prints of California landscape. Baumann's prints became synonymous with the Southwest, capturing the spirit of its place in America's identity with a unique sense of authenticity and reverence. His iconic images of desert vistas, pueblo villages, and indigenous cultures served as visual tributes to the region's rich cultural heritage, earning him a dedicated following among collectors and curators alike. A true craftsman and artist, Baumann completed every step of the printmaking process himself, cutting each block, mixing the inks, and printing every impression on the handmade paper he selected. His dedication to true craftsmanship and his commitment to preserving the integrity of his artistic vision earned him widespread acclaim and recognition within the art world. About the vibrant colors he produced, Baumann stated, “A knowledge of color needs to be acquired since they don’t all behave the same way when ground or mixed...careful chemistry goes into the making of colors, with meticulous testing for permanence. While complicated formulae evolve new colors, those derived from Earth and metal bases are still the most reliable.” In the 1930s, Baumann became interested in puppet theater. He designed and carved his own marionettes and established a little traveling company. From 1943 to 1945, the artist carved an altarpiece for the Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe. In 1952, a retrospective exhibition of his prints was mounted at the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts. Throughout his prolific career, Baumann executed nearly four hundred color woodcuts. Baumann’s woodcuts...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) California Valley, Near Capistrano, c. 1937 Watercolor on paper Signed lower right, titled verso 15 x 20 inches 18.5 x 24 inches framed Fr...