Leonard Baskin (American, 1922-2000). "Angel to the Jews 2-2" color etching, 1991. Edition 13 of 40. Artist signature and edition number handwritten in pencil below image. A haunting color etching by Leonard Baskin entitled "Angel to the Jews" depicting a gaunt, screaming figure draped in a striped uniform - suggesting he is a prisoner of a World War II concentration camp - with wings of lush blue plumage emerging from his back. This image was part of a 1991 exhibition at Midtown Payson Galleries entitled "Angels to the Jews." Size of image: 17.5" W x 23.5" H (44.4 cm x 59.7 cm) Size of frame: 27.25" W x 33.25" H (69.2 cm x 84.5 cm)
Baskin was born the son of a rabbi and educated at a yeshiva, or Jewish religious college. He once described his Jewish identity saying: "Being Jewish confounds things. The people of the book are intelligently defined as a religion. I, a believing atheist, proudly declare my Jewishness. It is to Yiddish that my spirit warms; to that heritage of persecution and sensual denial, that Yiddish so richly expresses. Not religion, but religious texts: not beliefs or superstition, fear or malignant custom, but the literacy, artistic, cultural and human relics of that religion."
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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#174732
Condition
Artist signature and edition number handwritten in pencil below image. Set in custom matte and frame with suspension wire on verso for display. Some nicks and abrasions to frame, as well as tearing to gallery paper on verso; none of which affect image. Image has not been examined outside of frame, but appears to be in excellent overall condition.