The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 9, 2026

An etching on tan paper depicts a stork with dark-tipped wings and spindly legs descending over a quiet pond. Below, thick reeds and a small wooden walkway line the water where lily pads break the surface. Slender floral vines climb the vertical edges, framing the scene. In the bottom right corner, the initials H.C.V. are finely etched, finishing this delicate composition of the bird in a marshy landscape.

In Spring

1899

Heinrich Vogeler

(German, 1872–1942)
Germany
etching on Van Gelder Zonen paper
Sheet: 36 x 27 cm (14 3/16 x 10 5/8 in.)
Prints & Drawings Sundry Art Purchase 2024.11.7
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Heinrich Vogeler was active within an influential avant-garde artists’ colony in Worpswede, located in northeastern Germany, where he built a studio home that he conceived of as a total work of art, featured throughout these prints.

Description

Heinrich Vogeler was instrumental in the development of Jugendstil, or art nouveau, in Germany. This international movement advocated for an integration of the arts and their application to the visual culture of the everyday—including design, household goods, and illustrated books. In Spring features landscapes that loosely evoke the times of day, beginning with an image of the artist encountering a lark in the morning and concluding with the night sky over his home. Vogeler collaborated with the vanguard journal Die Insel and controlled every aspect of the portfolio’s production, including its cover design, font, layout, paper, ink tone, and binding.
  • {{cite web|title=In Spring|url=false|author=Heinrich Vogeler|year=1899|access-date=09 July 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2024.11.7