Caprice, 1963
Bronze
24 x 25 x 12 inches
Biography
A well-known draftsman, printmaker and sculptor, Leonard Baskin had the ability to depict, in an abstract style, man and his relation to the world. Whether working in bronze, wood or two-dimensional mediums, the focus of his subjects remained on large heroic, but flawed human beings At times his figures recall photographic images of concentration-camp victims or, as seen in his Crow Man in walnut of 1962, birds with human bodies that suggest mythological forms.
Born in 1922 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Baskin studied sculpture with Maurice Glickman at the Educational Alliance in New York City, from 1937 to 1943. He had many influences at that time including Ossip Zadkine, Henri Laurens, and Alexander Archipenko.
In 1949, Baskin began to make wood engravings, and his attitude toward the nature of man grew more generalized; however, no less moralistic or didactic. The style of his works from this period most resembles German Die Brucke prints. At this time Baskin also studied abroad at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. While abroad, he became very familiar with the Great European Collections, many of which influenced sculptural images he would later create.
True to the artistic community he was a part of, for many years, Baskin was a professor of sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.
