Distinguished Artist Series
The Life and Art of Karl Baumann
by Lauri Hoffman, Curator
Another student, Robert Brown, was
inspired by Baumann's dedication to art. For Baumann, art and life became
synonymous and it is through his painting that one is moved by his eternal
spirit. Living meant being awake and painting, explaining Baumann's aversion
to sleep. Brown reminisces, "We worked together during my young and
learning years. I admired and was moved by Karl's work. I was very impressed
by Karl's singlemindedness - the total involvement and total energy with
which he worked ... his single-mindeness and energy for painting, however,
was unbounded. One night I held a lashlight on his painting board while
he painted the night sky."
In one respect, Baumann's paintings are his personal response to an event, experience or idea. In a broader sense, they reflect the twentieth century state of mind. The crises that flowed from two world wars, the Great Depression, and the threat of nuclear warfare gave birth to a despondent nation. Technology, which entered the twentieth century with enthusiasm, had turned against its creator with its destructive capabilities. Technological developments first posed a threat to the human race through warfare, and then as a danger to the environment. Baumann produced four paintings in the early 1950s which directly relate to two events: the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and the testing of the hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands four years later. The series includes, "How Big is Big, " 1954 , "Ultra Ultra, " 1952 , "Rape of the Earth, " 1955 , and Untitled, 1955. Each painting illustrates the human potential to annihilate its entire species.
Above Right: Church, Sunday Morning, 1938, watercolor, 18 x 24 inches
This page was originally published in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information. rev. 10/28/11
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