This impressive life-sized woodcut showing a body devastated by atomic war was made by American Modernist, Boston Expressionist Leonard Baskin (1922-2000). Baskin studied at New York University,  Yale University, The New School,  Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and Accademia di Belle Arti. He worked in sculpture, drawing, and printmaking. He eschewed the abstract expressionist movement and persisted in more figurative work focussing on representing the human form. “Hydrogen Man” is in museum and private collections worldwide. Produced in the time after the devastation left by WWII, Baskin’s monumental print depicts the horror of impending nuclear devastation. Baskin said, “Our human frame, our gutted mansion, our enveloping sack of beef and ash is yet a glory.” A partial list of museums that hold his work are the British Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, MOMA, National Gallery of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Princeton University.

Titled in pencil lower left, signed in pencil lower right

Medium: woodcut on rice paper

Date of creation: 1954

 Size of paper: 83” x 39 1/2” Size of outside frame: 86” x 42 1/2”

Condition: There is a loss of paper in lower left side but the archival backing board is tinted so that the loss should not be visually distracting. There is slight discoloration along the middle section of the woodcut, and several small water stains.  It is housed in archival materials and with plexiglass to minimize the possibility of breakage. The custom black cap frame is in excellent condition.