Walter E. Baum Landscape Watercolor, ca. 1950
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GUEST:
It was something I inherited from my brother-in-law. He lived in Philadelphia, and he bought the painting at an auction. And he said it was painted by a local artist, and it was one of his favorite paintings.
APPRAISER:
Walter Baum is really a true Pennsylvania artist. He was part of the Bucks County Impressionists, or sometimes called the New Hope Impressionists, and he was really one of the only artists of that group that was actually born in Bucks County. And he stayed there his whole life. And he was really a patron of the arts in Pennsylvania. He was a founder at the Allentown Art Museum. He also was a founder of the Lehigh Art Alliance. And he started his own art school, the Baum School of Art. Baum produced a lot of work, many say thousands of pieces. And he did this for several decades, so it can be a bit hard to put a date on his work. The majority of these that we see were done in the 1940s or 1950s, so that would be my best guess as to when this would have been painted.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
It is a watercolor on paper, and the white is most likely gouache, which he would've added on top of the watercolor, representing the snow. And Baum is really best known for his snow scenes, so you kind of have what everybody wants by this artist. A current auction estimate for this watercolor would be $2,500 to $3,500.
GUEST:
That's great. Thank you.
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