About Leonard Baskin
Leonard Baskin (August 15, 1922 – June 3, 2000) 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." == Early life and education == Baskin was born in New Brunswick, NJ. When Baskin was seven, the family relocated to the Jewish Orthodox section of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. Having vowed to become a sculptor at the age of 15, Baskin studied sculpting as an apprentice to Maurice Glickman from 1937 to 1939 at the Educational Alliance in New York City. Baskin studied at the New York University School of Architecture and Applied Arts from 1939 to 1941. In 1941, he won a scholarship to Yale where he studied for two years, and founded the Gehenna Press. Baskin served in the U.S. Navy during the final years of World War II, and then in the Merchant Navy. He then studied at The New School for Social Research, where he obtained his B.A. in 1949. "In 1950 he went to Paris where he studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and the following year to Florence to work at the Accademia di Belle Arti." == Career == === Early career === As a young man, at the height of the flowering Boston Expressionist movement centered around the city's Boris Mirski Gallery, Baskin had his first major solo exhibition there in 1956, on the heels of being one of 11 artists featured in the opening exhibition at the Terrain Gallery.
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