About Leonard Baskin
Leonard Baskin was an American sculptor, draughtsman, and graphic artist, as well as founder of the Gehenna Press (1942–2000). One of America's first fine arts presses, it went on to become "one of the most important and comprehensive art presses of the world", often featuring the work of poets, such as Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Anthony Hecht, and James Baldwin side by side with Baskin's bold, stark, energetic and often dramatic black-and-white prints. Called a "Sculptor of Stark Memorials" by the New York Times, Baskin is also known for his wood, limestone, bronze, and large-scale woodblock prints, which ranged from naturalistic to fanciful, and were frequently grotesque, featuring bloated figures or humans merging with animals. "His monumental bronze sculpture, The Funeral Cortege, graces the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C." His first wife, Esther Baskin, a nature writer, the author of Creatures of Darkness and The Poppy and Other Deadly Plants, and mother to son Tobias, died in 1973 at age 47. Baskin founded the Gehenna Press in 1942, one of the first fine art presses in the U.S., as a student at Yale, inspired by the illustrated books of William Blake, which so impressed him that he decided to learn to print and make his own books. The Gehenna Press printed over 100 books and ran until Baskin's death in 2000.
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