Gustave Baumann
Subtitle: Nearer to Art
Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Press
Published: October 1993
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 160
ISBN-13: 9780890132517
Subjects: Relief processes (eg woodcut, lino); Individual Artist; Art; Art & Art Instruction; Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions - General; Printmaking; American - General
First sentence: In 1915, nine years after a devastating earthquake, San Francisco hosted The Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
Description: Independent, prolific, and influential, Gustave Baumann stands at the center of American woodcut printmaking in the first half of the century. He created vivid, brilliantly colorful nature-inspired scenes of rural American life and Indian cultures. His prints are simple and elegant studies rooted in a landscape that is both delicate and rugged. This award-winning book is the first published collection of his stunning oeuvre.

Starting out as a commercial illustrator, at night Baumann studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, "to get nearer to art", and also briefly in Munich, refining the fundamentals of his artistic direction and creating his first woodcuts in a medium that would bring him international recognition. Baumann lived in Chicago and Brown County, Indiana, and then spent more than a half-century in Santa Fe, taking frequent side trips about the West and California and creating his most beloved prints.