The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 20, 2024
Idle Fleet
1917, printed 1931
(American, born Germany, 1881–1971)
Image: 24.2 x 27.9 cm (9 1/2 x 11 in.); Sheet: 34.4 x 43.5 cm (13 9/16 x 17 1/8 in.)
Gift of Ann Baumann 2005.423
© Ann Baumann Trust
Catalogue raisonné: Chamberlain 54
Location: not on view
Description
Baumann went to Provincetown, Massachusetts, then a small quaint fishing village, where his friend B. J. O. Nordfeldt had settled with several artists making color woodcuts. Normally one block was cut for each color, but Nordfeldt devised a method using only one block. A channel was cut around each color area, allowing all the colors to be put on the block simultaneously. When the block was printed, each color area was surrounded by a white line, the unprinted white paper. Mabel Hewit’s Houses, pictured below, demonstrates the technique. Baumann continued to use multiple blocks but emulated the effect of white-line woodcuts in Idle Fleet by outlining most pictorial elements in negative space. The use of white to separate shapes and pastel colors captured the effect of brilliant sunlight reflecting off the water and illuminating Provincetown’s faded clapboard houses.- Gustave Baumann: Colorful Cuts. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 20, 2020-June 27, 2021).
- {{cite web|title=Idle Fleet|url=false|author=Gustave Baumann|year=1917, printed 1931|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2005.423