Little Bird 1973

Leonard Baskin made this print, Little Bird, on a large sheet of paper using loose, expressive lines and a restricted colour palette. It's the kind of piece where you can really see the artist working through his ideas. The ochre background and accents feel particularly tactile and immediate, almost as if they were applied in one go. Look at the hand, it’s rendered in simple hatched lines. There’s an honesty to Baskin’s approach, nothing is overworked, and the incompleteness of the image adds to its emotional depth. The figure emerges from the ground, a mass of raw, vulnerable marks. Baskin was interested in the human form, and its capacity to convey psychological states; think of artists like Kathe Kollwitz or even Egon Schiele, they share a similar intensity. Ultimately, Baskin's work reminds us that art is a process of discovery, and that sometimes the most powerful statements are made with the simplest of means.