Yellow Magpie 1973

Leonard Baskin made this ‘Yellow Magpie’ print; the date’s a mystery, but the medium is lithograph on paper. Baskin lays down these strokes, and they build to form a complete person in a way that feels really intuitive. Up close, you can see these scratchy textures building up to form the figure, see how the details around the eyes and hands are created through these tiny little lines? The color is so subtle. That pale pink skin tone against the black ink of the hat. Then there is a pop of brightness from the necklace that draws your eye right to the center. It is an earthy palette of pink, peach, green and yellow, punctuated by dark blacks, that lends the figure a raw yet grounded feel. Baskin's other prints and sculptures have a similar sense of expressive mark-making. I’m reminded of Jacob Lawrence’s flat planes of color. Just like Baskin, Lawrence knew how to create depth and emotion through the simplest of means. Art is like a big conversation, right? We're all just borrowing and building on each other's ideas.