Description: Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) woodblock printing from the acclaimed "Othello" series, produced in 1973 on Japanese paper, published by the Ghenna Press for the Kennedy Galleries in New York. This is simply title "Othello", and depicts an older version of Othello. It is printed on a 19 5/8" x 15 5/8" sheet with 12 5/8" x 6 3/4" block. Numbered in pencil 6/200 lower left and signed lower right. Good condition with some wrinkling and toning from past framing mat. Titled at center of lower edge on reverse. See photos. This item will ship rolled. Biography: Leonard Baskin was an American sculptor, draughtsman, and graphic artist, as well as the founder of the Gehenna Press, which operated from 1942 to 2000. This press, one of the first fine arts presses in America, became recognized as "one of the most important and comprehensive art presses in the world." Gehenna Press frequently featured works by renowned poets such as Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Anthony Hecht, and James Baldwin, alongside Baskin's own powerful, dramatic black-and-white prints. The New York Times dubbed him a "Sculptor of Stark Memorials" for his work with wood, limestone, bronze, and large-scale woodblock prints, which ranged from naturalistic to fanciful and often featured grotesque elements like bloated figures or human-animal hybrids. Baskin was deeply influenced by his Jewish heritage and his family's rabbinical background, which often informed his work's focus on mortality, Judaism, the Holocaust, and other somber themes. His commitment to figurative art, in contrast to the dominant abstract expressionist movement of his time, was encapsulated in a quote he gave to Time magazine and later cited by the New York Times: "Our human frame, our gutted mansion, our enveloping sack of beef and ash is yet a glory. Glorious in defining our universal sodality and in defining our utter uniqueness. The human figure is the image of all men and of one man. It contains all and can express all." During the peak of the Boston Expressionist movement in the 1950s, Baskin held his first major solo exhibition at the Boris Mirski Gallery in 1956, after being one of 11 artists featured in the opening exhibition at the Terrain Gallery. Over the next decade, he participated in more than 40 exhibitions and was the subject of the 1966 documentary "Images of Leonard Baskin" by American filmmaker Warren Forma. Baskin's work earned him numerous accolades, including a Caldecott Honor in 1972 for his illustrations in "Hosie's Alphabet," a book written by his wife Lisa and their sons Tobias and Hosea. In 1994, he received two significant commissions: a 30-foot bas-relief for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., and a bronze statue for the Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Price: 200 USD
Location: New Harbor, Maine
End Time: 2024-09-25T21:49:51.000Z
Shipping Cost: 0 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Artist: Leonard Baskin
Type: Print
Theme: People
Features: Limited Edition, Numbered
Production Technique: Woodcut Printing
Subject: Figures
