(Bronze. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C.)
Bronze. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C.
book
Hosie's Alphabet
(A full-page illustration of a creature for each letter of...)
A full-page illustration of a creature for each letter of the alphabet, including a bumptious baboon, furious fly, ghastly garrulous gargoyle and quintessential quail.
(A noted contemporary artist pays homage to artists of the...)
A noted contemporary artist pays homage to artists of the past, with whom he feels a degree of kinship, offering interpretive essays on the works and times of these artists.
Leonard Baskin was an American sculptor, illustrator, printmaker, educator and writer, who was mostly known for his bleak portrayals of the human figure. His prints ranged from woodcuts through lithography and etching and his subjects covered portraits, flower studies, biblical, classical and mythological scenes.
Background
Leonard Baskin was born on August 15, 1922, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States. He was a son of Samuel Baskin, a rabbi, and May (Guss) Baskin. The family relocated to Brooklyn, New York City, when Leonard was seven years old.
Leonard was a cousin of an American dancer and choreographer Sophie Maslow.
Education
In his early years, between 1929 and 1938, Baskin studied at yeshiva, a Jewish religious college. During the period from 1939 till 1941, he attended the New York University School of Architecture and Applied Arts. In 1941, Leonard entered Yale School of Art on a scholarship, that he had won, and studied there until 1943. It was at Yale, that Baskin developed an interest in printing and was influenced by the illustrated books of William Blake.
During the last years of World War II, Baskin served in the United States Navy, as well as in the Merchant Navy. Later, Leonard entered The New School for Social Research in New York City, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. In 1950, Baskin studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, and the following year, in 1951, Leonard attended the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze.
In addition, Baskin received numerous honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Clark University in 1966, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Rutgers University in 1967 and many others.
In 1942, while studying at Yale School of Art, Leonard founded Gehenna Press, which published finely illustrated books - most notably, editions by poets Ted Hughes and Anthony Hecht, that featured Baskin’s art. Gehenna Press was one of the first fine art presses in the United States and ran until Baskin's death in 2000.
In the 1950's, Baskin began to receive recognition for his monumental woodcuts, the first of their size, executed by any modern artist. During the period from 1953 till 1974, Baskin held a post of a teacher of printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 1974, together with his family, he settled down in Lurley, Devon, England, in order to live closer to his friend Ted Hughes, for whom he had created illustrations for the poetry volume "Crow", which was published in 1970. Baskin and Hughes worked together on some thirty books, including "A Primer of Birds" (1981).
In 1984, Leonard came back to the United States, where, the same year, he was appointed a teacher at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, a post he held till 1994.
As for his artistic career, Baskin held his first major solo exhibition at the Boris Mirski Gallery in Boston in 1956. His public commissions included a bas-relief for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and a bronze statue of a seated figure, erected in 1994 for the Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Also, as far as Leonard was Jewish, he often examined Jewish themes in his oeuvre, including memorials to the Holocaust.
Gericault (Homage to French painter Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault)
Watteau
lithography
Ahab with a Red Hat
Cain
Abraham
Leader
Oedipus at Colonus
Olympus - The Athlete
Sitting Bull
A Cheyenne Woman in the Robes of a Secret Society
painting
My Eagle Right or Wrong
Brooding
Ars Anatomica: XII
FDR-First Innaugural
sculpture
Phaedra
Owl
Medea
An Other Angel
woodcut
Custos Morum
Cave Canem (Civilitas Successit Barbarum)
Drink, Tomorrow You Die
Man of Peace
Everyman
Views
Each of Baskin's works reveals an artist in possession of enormous visual and literary vocabularies. The pluralistic nature of his abilities is echoed in wide-ranging (and often recurring) subjects. Baskin's attraction to Old Testament themes, perhaps, comes as no surprise, considering, that he was the son of an orthodox rabbi. However, Greek mythological personages, predatory birds, Native Americans and figures of death and the dead also number among Baskin's considerable cast of characters. Also, social consciousness and high regard for humanity connect the numerous and apparently diverse artworks, that comprise Baskin's oeuvre.
Baskin was at odds with the dominant artistic trends of his time. He abhorred Abstract Expressionism, the devaluation of figural humanism and the practice of specialization.
As a lecturer, writer and public figure, Baskin verbalized his contrarian opinions, consciously separating himself from those, who differed with his beliefs, yet never alienating himself from a sizable devoted public.
Quotations:
"Art is man's distinctly human way of fighting death."
"There is, however, a change going on in the world. There's far more interest in drawing now than there has been in a long, long time. Schools are beginning to teach drawing again in a serious and meaningful way."
"I always felt I needed to teach to survive."
"I always felt that I had anxiety of survival in terms of livelihood even when I was making plenty of money."
"People like me, who care about printing, constitute the tiniest lunatic fringe in the nation."
"It took me fifty years to deal with the Holocaust at all. And I did it in a literary way."
"I think there is an element of nihilism about, but I don't think most artists feel their work is meaningless."
"Pop art is the inedible raised to the unspeakable."
"Architecture should be dedicated to keeping the outside out and the inside in."
Membership
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
,
United States
1966
National Academy of Design
,
United States
Personality
Baskin was a noted philatelist and built an important and eclectic collection of postage stamps.
Connections
Leonard married Esther (Tane) Baskin, a nature writer, on November 26, 1946. Their marriage produced one child - Tobias Isaac. Esther died in 1973. Later, in October 1967, Baskin married Lisa (Unger) Baskin. The couple gave birth to two children - Hosea Thomas and Lucretia Manya.