Snapshot In Time: This scene offers the viewer some respite from the ballyhoo going on in 1928 at the height of the Jazz Age. If the tree were real, overhead you might have heard the sound of Amelia Earhart's airplane setting a cross country record. Airplanes were a national obsession in the Roaring 20s and in 1928 the very first Oscar went to a movie called Wings. However, not everyone was hooked on airplanes.....In the first cartoon with sound, Steamboat Willie introduced us to Mickey Mouse.

Art Smart Fact: Baumann’s works differ from most American woodcuts of the period because they did not evolve from the Japanese tradition of using single printing blocks. Instead, Baumann typically used six or more blocks which were carved and then printed on paper using a hand press to print one color at a time, one block over another.

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 SPRING BLOSSOMS. 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. This image has a nice Japanese woodcut or Asian design feel to it and SPRING BLOSSOMS is one of the best buys at Peggity's today.