Castle Street Dogs
1952
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
wood engraving in black on wove paper
Dimensions
image (irregular): 3.81 × 5.08 cm (1 1/2 × 2 in.) sheet: 13.34 × 7.78 cm (5 1/4 × 3 1/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Jay Finkel
Accession Number
2013.121.12
Art Historical Context
**Castle Street Dogs** is a diminutive yet striking wood engraving created by Leonard Baskin in1952. Measuring just 3.81 × 5.08 cm, this black-on-wove-paper print captures an intimate scene of dogs amid an urban setting, evoking the grit of postwar American life. Baskin, a master printmaker and founder of the Gehenna, was renowned for reviving the labor-intensive wood engraving technique, uses the dense end-grain of wood blocks to produce razor-sharp lines and textures unattainable by other methods. This precision shines in the artwork's fine details, making it a testament to the medium's illu...
About the Artist
Leonard Baskin
Leonard Baskin (1922–2000) was a towering figure in American art, renowned for his monumental sculptures, powerful woodcuts, and intricate book illustrations that grappled with the human condition's darker facets. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to a family of rabbis, he moved to Brooklyn's Jewish Orthodox Williamsburg neighborhood at age seven. Vowing to become a sculptor at 15, Baskin apprent...