Snapshot In Time: Gustave Baumann carved the blocks and printed this woodcut of a typical southwestern adobe bungalow in 1924. At the very same time, Sears, Roebuck and Co. was enjoying one of their peak years selling homes through their mail-order Modern Homes program. Sears designed 447 different housing styles, from the elaborate multistory Ivanhoe, with its elegant French doors and art glass windows, to the simpler Goldenrod, which served as a quaint, three-room and no-bath cottage for summer vacationers. Customers could choose a house to suit their individual tastes and budgets, however, if you preferred a real adobe dwelling you would have to move to old Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Art Smart Fact: Gustave Baumann was unsurpassed in his use of color as a printmaker in his color woodblock prints. He made his own inks, mixing ground pigments with a varnish base according to a well-kept recipe. OLD SANTA FE typifies Baumann's mastery of color. Here he made the adobe building on the right side of the picture the focus of your attention simply by changing the color! Another interesting fact is that Baumann would typically shun anything but distinctive oatmeal papers for his woodcuts. These papers were made to his own specifications first in Germany and then in the United States after the onset of World War II.

About The Art: Baumann is considered by many to be the "best of the best" of any printmaker who ever worked in this difficult medium in the early to mid-20th century. Baumann has an extensive listing in Who Was Who In American Art, the bible for fine art collectors, curators and appraisers throughout the world. Today, original woodcuts by Gustave Baumann cost thousands of dollars if and when you can find them. But you don't need to win the lottery to own his work. Just as finely crafted furniture from eras past has been replicated because the makers are gone, this is a fine reproduction of OLD SANTA FE. Indeed, it is one of the better reproductions I have seen in over a decade of selling both original and replicated Baumann woodcuts. It was made using contemporary offset printing techniques, however you will be very surprised how authentic the signature and hand-in-the-heart chop mark look and how good the colors are.....even the paper has texture.

You will be interested to know that several of the Baumann woodcut reproductions that are now out-of-print have gone on to become valuable themselves. As with me, these Baumann woodcut replicas are a wonderful way to hold a place on your home or office wall until an original might luckily come your way. OLD SANTA FE is available unframed only.