The Mill Pond

The Mill Pond is one of Baumann’s most ambitious prints. After exhibiting a group of five-color woodblock prints— including Harden Hollow, —at the Art Institute in January 1913, he decided to make a series of larger, six-color woodblocks, intending to have them hung in the classrooms of local schools. This work comes from the latter series. The plan of putting the prints in schools did not come to fruition, however, and Baumann took a brief hiatus from printmaking. His interest in the medium was later revived by his success at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.