The Lark was one of several “little magazines” dedicated to avant-garde art and literature published in American cities in the 1890s. This humor magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1895 by artist-writers Bruce Porter and Frank Gelett Burgess; during its two-year run, it was intended to promote a new “California style” in both art and literature. This design promoting the first issue in May 1895 was created by Bruce Porter using linocut and hand-applied watercolor. The nude figure of Pan playing his pipe with his back turned to the viewer suggests the irreverent sensibility of a publication intended for educated, mildly bohemian readers. The figure of Pan appears in various guises in several of the promotional posters subsequently designed for The Lark by illustrator Florence Lundborg, distinguished by their use of woodblock printing rather than lithography and their motifs inspired by the Northern California landscape.