Harden Hollow

 

Gustave Baumann

  1881 - 1971 (biography)

1912 / 1914 

color woodcut 

19 3/4 x 26 5/8" image size 

pencil, lower right 

20 impressions recorded 

titled, lower right; stylized GB / DS. SC. carved into the block in lower right image and the copyright symbol carved into the block in lower left image 

Chamberlain 1912, PPIE cat. no. 911 

cream wove kyokushi paper 

published 

 

JOSE102 

SOLD

Harden Hollow was the first of five oversize color woodcuts produced by Baumann when he lived in Nashville, Brown County, Indiana. Color woodcuts of this size were rare, owing to the difficulty of cutting and aligning the blocks for perfect registration. A photograph of Baumann rolling ink onto a wood block during the printing of The Mill Pond is illustrated on page 6 of In A Modern Rendering The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné.

Baumann was a prolific writer as evidenced by the plethora of handwritten manuscripts discovered in his studio. Long after he was established in Santa Fe, he reflected on his formative years in Brown County and one manuscript refers to the creation of this series of large color woodcuts of Brown County, Indiana: Then the idea of making blocks prints for School room decoration seemed a likely one. An old newspaper press made it possible to print blocks 20 x 24. Japanese vellum in those days was inexpensive. Upon inquiring I found inks that were lightproof and five prints evolved which I thought would enhance any School room. It was the kind of venture that put the emphasis on bigness and quantity to make it profitable. This venture died with the first edition of perhaps twenty each, a few of which are still in existence. After an interval of recovering from the undertaking, I went back to a small size print. With what I had learned not to do, this seems to be the pattern that served all these years.

Harden Hollow was first printed in 1912 but the printing of twenty impressions spanned several years. This impression bears Baumann’s Hand-in-Heart Chop which clearly dates it to 1914.