The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of October 11, 2026

A vertically oriented color woodcut on tan paper depicts a dense, square composition of overlapping geometric forms, appearing shattered and reassembled. Shimmering silver aluminum leaf, gray, and black shapes are layered with hatched textures, spirals, and sharp lines. Small tan highlights accent the dark, interlocking field. The woodcut is centered with wide margins, featuring the title inscribed below on our left and an orange hand-marked signature on our right.

Night Ceremony

1938, printed 1948

Gustave Baumann

(American, born Germany, 1881–1971)
America
color woodcut with aluminum leaf
John L. Severance Fund 1992.337
© Ann Baumann Trust
Catalogue raisonné: Chamberlain 156; Acton, Krause & Yurtseven 57
Location: Not on view

Description

Night Ceremony, one of Gustave Baumann’s very few abstract compositions, represents ornamented fragments of Native American pottery overlaid and jigsawed together. A collector of Native American ceramics, Baumann wrote, “Pot shards are a kind of scrambled history of New Mexico with essential words omitted that archaeologists are forever trying to find.” Two blocks were used to print Night Ceremony: one for dark gray and the other for adhesive. While the adhesive was still tacky, thin leaves of aluminum were applied side by side. The gray ink, aluminum leaf, and negative space (the white of the paper) create the image that simulates the jet black and burnished luster of Santa Clara Pueblo pottery.
  • Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1992.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38–79. Mentioned: p. 70 www.jstor.org
  • Gustave Baumann: Colorful Cuts. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 20, 2020-June 27, 2021).
  • {{cite web|title=Night Ceremony|url=false|author=Gustave Baumann|year=1938, printed 1948|access-date=11 October 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1992.337