Snapshot In Time: This road may have been traveled by suffragettes since this woodcut was created when women did not have the vote! Maybe they were wearing Keds shoes which first came on the market in 1916. Or, this road could have been traveled by early automobiles which had windshield wipers for the very first time. Possibly the passengers were on their way to camp in an area which is now being run in 1916 by the brand new National Park Service.

Art Smart Fact: This year the play Pirates! was published as a book with 16 woodcut illustrations by Baumann. It was only one year earlier that the relatively unknown Gustave Baumann stunned the art world by capturing the Gold Medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Virtually every major artist working at the time had entered work in the Exposition's competition. Woodcut artistry would never be the same after millions of visitors and young artists saw Baumann's beautiful woodcuts for the very first time.

About The Art: Independent and influential, Gustave Baumann stands at the center of American color relief printmaking in the 20th century. He is considered by many to be the "best of the best" of any color woodcut artist who has ever worked in this difficult medium. Today, original woodcuts by Gustave Baumann cost thousands of dollars if and when you can find them.

But you don't have to win the lottery to own his work. This is a fine reproduction of RIDGE ROAD. Indeed, it is one of the best reproductions I have seen in over a decade of selling both original and replicated Baumann woodcuts. 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. Several of the out-of-print reproductions have gone on to become valuable themselves.