Singverein (plus two original blocks)

 

Gustave Baumann

  1881 - 1971 (biography)

1909  

color woodcut, accompanied by two wood blocks 

7 3/4 x 11 1/16" image 

unsigned 

unnumbered 

none 

Chamberlain 12 

heavy sheet of laid Japan 

trial proof 

 

AB3056 

$12,000.00 

"Singverein" loosely translates to "Singing club". 'Writing in the Indianapolis News in 1911, Francis Johnson observed that Baumann captured the spirit of a German Saengerfest (singing competition) with this color woodcut. Photographs in the Baumann archive show him enjoying such events in Germany in 1905. ..In this scene, the chorale master plays the piano while conducting a group of men sitting in a semicircle and singing the words from their song sheets. At the top of the image, putti [cherubs] hold up a banner on which is written the name of a song, "Gaudeamus Igitur." It is European and considered to be the oldest students' drinking song. It appears that the artist could not resist including himself in this scene - he is the singer with the glasses in the lower left.' - Chamberlain, p. 139,