Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge: Coal Hill (Jingshan Park, Beijing)
Artist: Cyrus Leroy Baldridge (1889-1975)
Title: Coal Hill Date: 1925 Publisher: Watanabe Shozaburo
Size: 39.2 x 26.6 cm
A shepherd grazes their flock on a yellow-hued hill that is topped with three monuments. This is what was called Coal Hill, and is an extension of the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was built with fill from nearby canals to a height of 150 feet during the Ming Dynasty and was situated on the northern side of the city to improve the feng shui of the city itself, providing a northern hill to protect the city from negative influences from that direction. There are five individual peaks that are each topped by an elaborate pavilion. It has been open to the public since 1928 and is now called Jingshan Park.
Due to his years of world travels, his liberal internationalist views and his own modest upbringing, Baldridge treated his subjects with respect and equanimity, eschewing the colonialist attitude that was the norm at the time. This is one of the most "picturesque" views of the series, but it still features a person of the farming class.
Watanabe published six woodcuts in total by this artist in the same year; they are unique in style, as little about them aligns the other works that Watanabe was publishing at the time. They feature almost no bokashi (shading), and the pigments are much more opaque than those used in works by other artists, especially Hasui landscapes. Watanabe and his artisans must have collaborated with the artist to replicate the original artworks done by Baldridge. This dealer has usually encountered these works in very faded condition following decades on the wall; we see their real charm and liveliness when unfaded, as here. Pencil signed Cyrus Baldridge ‘25 and titled “Coal Hill” by the artist at bottom. Also numbered x10 by the artist in pencil.
Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge began his art training at the tender age of ten, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1911. During World War One he worked as a war correspondent and illustrator in Europe, becoming the top illustrator for the Stars and Stripes and other publications. After the war he published a book of his collected war sketches to show what he had seen. He is quoted as saying “If only I can make the public see what war is–what a dirty, low thing it is, and how brutal it makes men fine clean men– then they’d fight to the last ditch for the League of Nations”. In 1920 he forged a partnership with the writer Caroline Singer, and after the war they traveled across China and Japan as well as Africa. They later became deeply committed to the rights of Black Americans.
Condition: Excellent impression and color. Very good condition. Bottom left corner has been nicked.
SKU: BAL007