TitleLeonard Baskin in his Muscovy Hat
Artist
Leonard Baskin
(American, 1922 - 2000)
Date1994
MediumGouache on white Arches paper
DimensionsSheet size: 30 1/16 × 22 9/16 in.
Image size: 30 1/16 × 22 9/16 in.
Other (Backing board): 34 3/4 × 27 1/8 in.
SignedSigned in red gouache at bottom right: "Baskin"
MarkingsBlindstamp at TRC: "AQUARELLE ARCHES".
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, May 25, 1994
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1994.18
Label TextA true Renaissance man, Leonard Baskin excelled in the various techniques of painting, printmaking, illustration, and sculpture over the course of his sixty-year career. Born into a religious family in New Jersey, he was raised in Brooklyn, New York before attending Yale University for two years. Following service in the Navy during World War II, Baskin completed his B.A. at the New School for Social Research before continuing his studies in Paris, France and Florence, Italy. For twenty years Baskin held a professorship in art at Smith College and until his death he regularly exhibited his work throughout the world.Central to Baskin's literary, religious, and social subjects were the human figure and the human condition. It was because of his commitment to humanism that, despite developing as an artist during a period when abstraction was the dominant artistic mode, the figure never disappeared from his work. Baskin created many images of himself throughout his career and "Leonard Baskin in his Muscovy Hat" is a particularly large self-portrait that depicts only the face of the artist. The inclusion of the Muscovy hat may be an allusion to his Russian ancestors, as Muscovy was an early incarnation of the Russian State.
