Leonard Baskin
Sculpture Gallery
Leonard
Baskin's main focus throughout his life was sculpture: "My sculptures
are memorials to ordinary human beings, gigantic monuments to the unnoticed
dead: the exhausted factory worker, the forgotten tailor, the unsung poet...
Sculpture at its greatest and most monumental is about simple, abstract,
emotional states, like fear, pride, love and envy... Over the years I
have developed a series of images of predatory birds and vicious human
beings as well as producing a bizarre motley of iconic devices that say...BASKIN!"
On
the site of the First Jewish Cemetery in Michigan stands the
Ann Arbor Holocaust Memorial, a 7-foot seated figure
with a fist over its face and a hand raised to the sky.
"It's ambivalent," said Baskin, "The figure is in some sort
of misery, wrapped up entirely in himself." |
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The Roosevelt Memorial
| On May 2nd, 1997, the President of the United States dedicated Leonard Baskin's Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in our nation's capital. Visitors from around the world encountered the Memorial's myriad of waterfalls spilling over granite walls into sparkling pools. This provided the dramatic setting for a thirty foot long bas relief by Leonard Baskin of Roosevelt's funeral cortege. This was only the third time this century that the United States has Dedicated a Presidential Memorial--the last time such a dedication took place was in 1943, when President Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial. |
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Arrival |
Artist's Nightmare |
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Unknown Dutch Artist |
Glutted Death with Wings |
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Holocaust Figure |
Lazarus |
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Medea |
Death Satiated and Exhausted |
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Vashti |
Sentinel |