**Originally Listed At $800**

Leonard Baskin (American, 1922-2000). "Egg Mother" from "Sibyls" - a colored woodcut, 1991. Signed, titled & numbered by Baskin. Leonard Baskin's "Egg Mother" is accompanied by Ruth Fainlight's poem in the book "Sibyls" published by The Gehanna Press. The composition of this woodcut features a woman dressed in a long green robe sitting upon a seated blue crow, with a red margin beyond the black outlined oval surrounding them. The essence of Baskin's sibylline image was captured by Fainlight's words, "As if it were the Orphic World Egg, / a silver moon floats up / to signal her arrival, and all the women / turn to watch the bird / settle, and catch her first words and smiles." "Sibyls" includes twelve colored woodblocks by Leonard Baskin to which Ruth Fainlight responded with twelve poems. Size (image): 16.7" L x 11" W (42.4 cm x 27.9 cm) Size (sight view): 18.4" L x 12.4" W (46.7 cm x 31.5 cm) Size (frame): 27" L x 20.75" W (68.6 cm x 52.7 cm)

The entirety of Ruth Fainlight's poem titled "Egg Mother" reads as follows:

In the same soothing tone the god uses

before he mounts her, she whispers

secrets that the stars and trees have told her

against the bird’s warm neck

then grips him firmly around feathery sides.



His strong wings raise them high above the coast

and follow the river’s trail

glinting up the valley to its mountain

source. Brought on the backs

of their oracular birds to a rock-strewn field



below the summit-line, sibyls gather:

the Delphic and the Persian,

Cumaean, Erythraean, Tiburtine,

and those from even further –

sudden great oases, weed-fringed islands.



As if it were the Orphic World Egg,

a silver moon floats up

to signal her arrival, and all the women

turn to watch the bird

settle, and catch her first words and smiles.



Using the same tones their gods do,

gentling them into submission.



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 images of flora and raptors. 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. "Angel of Death" has been collected by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art among others (accession numbers 1971.300, 1971.25, and 1961-157-4 respectively). 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.

Leonard Baskin's "Egg Mother" is in the permanent collection of the Farnsworth Museum (accession number 2014.10.6) as well as the Five College Consortium of Amherst College, Hampshire College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and UMASS Amherst (accession number SC 2005.27.2).

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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#174232

Signed, titled, and numbered in pencil by Baskin. Mounted in custom double matte and frame behind glass. This colored woodcut has not been examined outside the glass; however, it appears to be in very good condition save minor creases in the margins. Strong image with vibrant colors. Fit with suspension wire and ready to display.