Paul Landacre

'Verdi' — 1930s American Modernism - Italian Opera Composer

1936

John Tarrell Scott, 'St. George', woodcut, edition 20, 1992. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '18/20' in pencil. A fine, black impression, on off-white, laid Japan paper, with ful...

'Harlem Beauty' ('Negress', 'Negro Girl', 'Black Girl'), woodcut, 1930, edition 30, Rose lll.42. Signed, dated, numbered '1 - XXX', and titled 'Negress' in ...

Francis Coradal-Cugat, 'Richard Wagner', etching, c. 1928. Signed, titled, and numbered ‘2/50’ in pencil with the artist’s inked fingerprint beneath his signature. A fine, richly ink...

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: New Mexico Museum of Art, Phoenix 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...

Rockwell Kent, 'Mountain Climber', wood engraving, 1933, edition 250, Burne Jones 93. Signed in pencil. A brilliant, black impression, on cream, wove Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (2 9/16 to 3 5/8 inches); slight skinning at the top sheet edge verso, where previously hinged; otherwise, in excellent condition. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 7 7/8 x 5 7/8 inches (200 x 149 mm); sheet size 14 x 11 1/8 inches (356 x 283 mm). Printed by Pynson Printers, New York. Distributed by The Print Club of Cleveland, Publication No. 11, 1933. Literature: 'Rockwellkentiana,' Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1933. '101 of The World’s Greatest Books', edited by Spencer Armstrong, 1950. Impressions of this work are held in the following museum collections: Akron Art Institute, Burne Jones Collection, IL; Cincinnati Art Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Davis Museum at Wellesley College; Fine Art Museums of San Francisco; H. M. de Young Museum; Hermitage Museum; Kent Collection, NY; Library of Congress; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester; Metropolitan Museum of Art; New York Public Library; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Princeton University Library; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Spector Collection, NY; SUNY, Plattsburg. ABOUT THE ARTIST Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), though best known as a painter, graphic artist, and illustrator, pursued many careers throughout his life, including architect, carpenter, explorer, writer, dairy farmer, and political activist. Born in Tarrytown, New York, Kent was interested in art from a young age. These ambitions were encouraged by his aunt Jo Holgate, an accomplished ceramicist. Jo came to live with the family after Kent’s father passed away in 1887 and took him to Europe as a teenager, undoubtedly kindling his interest in exploring the world. Kent attended the Horace Mann School in New York City, where he excelled at mechanical drawing. His family’s financial circumstances prevented him from pursuing a career in the fine arts; however, after graduating from Horace Mann in 1900, Kent decided to study architecture at Columbia University. Before matriculating at Columbia, Kent spent the first of three consecutive summers studying painting at William Merritt Chase’s art school in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. There he found a community of mentors and fellow students who encouraged him to pursue his interest in art. At the end of Kent’s third summer at Shinnecock, Chase offered him a full scholarship to the New York School of Art, where he was a teacher. Kent began taking night classes at the art school in addition to his architecture studies but soon left Columbia to study painting full-time. In addition to Chase, Kent took classes with Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller, where his classmates included the artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper. Kent spent the summer of 1903 assisting the eccentric painter Abbott Handerson Thayer at his studio in Dublin, New Hampshire—a position he secured through the recommendation of his Aunt Jo. Thayer’s naturalist lifestyle and almost mystical appreciation for natural phenomena greatly influenced Kent; he returned to Dublin for many years to visit Thayer and his family. Thayer gave the young artist time to pursue his work, and that summer Kent painted several views of the New Hampshire landscape, including Mount Monadnock. In 1905 Kent moved from New York to Monhegan Island in Maine, home to a summer art colony, where he continued to find inspiration in nature. Kent soon found success exhibiting and selling his paintings in New York, and in 1907, he was given his first solo show at Claussen Galleries. The following year he married his first wife, Kathleen Whiting (Thayer’s niece), with whom he had five children. The couple divorced in 1924, and Kent married Frances Lee the following year. They divorced after 15 years of marriage, and the artist married Sally Johnstone. For the next several decades, Kent lived a peripatetic lifestyle, settling in several locations in Connecticut, Maine, and New York. During this time he took several extended voyages to remote, often ice-filled, corners of the globe, including Newfoundland, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, and Greenland, to which he made three separate trips. For Kent, exploration and artistic production were twinned endeavors, and his travels to these rugged, elemental locations inspired his visual art and his writings. He developed a stark, realist landscape style in his paintings and drawings that revealed both nature’s harshness and its sublimity. Kent’s human figures, which appear sparingly in his work, often allude to the mythic themes of isolation, individualism, heroism, and the quest for self-connection. Important exhibitions of works from these travels include the Knoedler Gallery’s shows in 1919 and 1920, featuring Kent’s Alaska drawings...

A brilliant, black impression, on cream wove Japan; the full sheet with margins (2 to 2 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Edition 150. Signed in pencil. Matted to museum standards...

A limited edition woodcut portrait of Don Quixote de la Marcha by George De Groat (1917-1995). Don Quixote is instantly recognizable due to his thin fa...

In 1991 Harry Sternberg published a book with Brighton Press, San Diego. It was My Life in Woodcuts. At the time it was the only known woodcut autobiography. The deluxe editions of...

In 1991 Harry Sternberg published a book with Brighton Press, San Diego. It was My Life in Woodcuts. At the time it was the only known woodcut autobiography. The deluxe editions of...

Sidney Chafetz was known for his clever compositions and his many portraits, all made in the most 'difficult to control' medium of woodcut.. This charmi...

In 1991 Harry Sternberg published a book with Brighton Press, San Diego. It was My Life in Woodcuts. At the time it was the only known woodcut autobiography. The deluxe editions of...

In 1991 Harry Sternberg published a book with Brighton Press, San Diego. It was My Life in Woodcuts. At the time it was the only known woodcut autobiography. The deluxe editions of...