Last Rays of Sunshine

This painterly print would be almost monochromatic except for the enchanting orange woodblock Hans Neumann added to the trees. The color indicates a few thin beams of sun—Neumann’s clever way of illustrating just how thick and impenetrable these woods really are. Practiced in Japanese printmaking, he chose tissue-thin paper so the lines of the bark would print crisply. His setting could be the Bavarian Forest, which was just a day trip from Neumann’s home in Munich. As the sons of a respected German painter, Hans Neumann and his brother Ernst started out in parallel art careers. Yet Hans always felt he took a backseat to Ernst, who, under the name Ernst Neumann-Neander, went on to fame as a designer of Neander motorcycles and three-wheeled cars.