Carl Thiemann (1881 - 1966) was born in Carlsbad, Bohemia. He was a renowned painter and printmaker, especially respected for his woodcuts. He attended the Art Academy in Prague. In 1910 he became part of the Vienna Secession - an art movement that broke away from the academic, more traditional Vienna Academy of Arts. Artists in the movement, the most famous of which were Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, wanted to give equal status to all forms of art, not just fine arts. They asked why furniture, fiber arts and sculpture shouldn’t be considered on a par with oil painting?
Carl Thiemann was known particularly for his beautiful color woodblock prints of landscapes featuring birch trees. The Saturn Press card Snow Stream is a good example of his work. The card depicts trees in a wintry landscape bowing quietly over a fast-moving stream. The colors are subtle, and the image is a reflective one. What catches your eye is the sense of harmony in the reflections of the trees in the water.
Collections of Thiemann’s color woodcuts can be found at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and at the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria.
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