Contemporary woodcut by Dorothea Demus-Schneider.

A beautiful and unusual woodcut titled Opus 44: Spring by the contemporary Austrian artist Dorothea Demus-Schneider (b. 1956) showing putti figures on a dark ground. This image, on a long thin sheet (17 x 5 inches), reflects the artist’s interest in the German Expressionist tradition of woodcut. Although figures of babies or putti can be discerned here, the picture verges on the abstract. This is very much a handmade piece: the artist carved the blocks herself and printed from them in an almost primitive manner that reveals the texture of the handmade paper. Signed, dated, and annotated by the artist.