Leonard Baskin (American, 1922-2000). "Self Portrait" color woodblock print, n.d. Edition 10/50. Signature and number handwritten in pencil beneath image. A charming - if not playful - color woodblock self-portrait by the renowned Leonard Baskin depicting the artist wearing an orange cowboy hat and blue-tinted glasses - perhaps a jest towards his well-known melancholic stance on the human predicament - of a monumental scale. Baskin's head emerges from a dark background, his bearded visage shadowed as his huge eyes gaze outward from above gaunt cheeks and thin lips. While the grand scale and dark imagery are characteristically Baskin, the tongue-in-cheek spirit is certainly a departure from his typically grim subject matter. Baskin explored expressive self-portraiture many times throughout his career, creating a series of prints that document his progression through life and as an artist. Size of image: 28.75" W x 39.25" H (73 cm x 99.7 cm) Size of paper: 39.25" W x 51.5" H (99.7 cm x 130.8 cm)

Leonard Baskin was a 20th century "Renaissance Man" - a highly respected sculptor, printmaker, writer, and watercolorist. His prints included mythological, classical, and biblical scenes as well as portraits and floral studies. Baskin studied at Yale University from 1941 to 1943 and received his B.A. at the New School for Social Research in 1949. He also founded Gehenna Press which specialized in fine book production and taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts as well as Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts from 1953 until 1974. Baskin's artworks are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Vatican Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, the Tate Gallery in London, and other elite institutions. His noted public sculptural commissions include pieces for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial as well as the Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Baskin also received many prestigious honors, such as a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Gold Medal of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award. He was also honored with numerous retrospective exhibitions at institutions including the Smithsonian Museum, the Albertina Museum, and the Library of Congress.

Provenance: ex-private Bishop Family Trust collection, the Trust of the late Bill Bishop, a noted antiquarian with shops in Scottsdale, Arizona and Allenspark, Colorado, USA, acquired before 2010

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#174762

Number and signature handwritten in pencil beneath image. Tearing with loss to lower right side of paper but does not affect image. Wrinkling to paper and folding to edges, but image is in excellent overall condition with nice pigments.