Birds & Animals

Northampton: Gehenna Press, 1974. First edition. Hardcover. Orig. navy portfolio housed in folding box, striped front cover and back cover matching navy colored portfolio. Fine. Baskin, Leonard. Oblong folio. 28.7 x 37 cm. One of 50 copies. The 65 individual sheets, signed woodcuts and linoleum cuts by Baskin printed in black, blue, red and green ink on semi-transparent paper, interleaved with heavier stock. The images varying in size, all with full margins printed one to a leaf on Troya paper, and printed from the blocks by Harold McGrath, Signed by Baskin in pencil on last leaf. One of fifty sets created. An unknown number were bound; many, like this set, remained in loose sheets. The images, which range in size from roughly one inch up to 8 inches. They consist primarily of illustrations, bookplates, pressmarks, and ephemera used in earlier works. BRIDWELL 77. Laid-in, the Gehenna Press illustrated announcement on light green stock describing the publication. Baskin founded the Gehenna Press whilst at Yale in 1942, and printed prolifically for the rest of his life, notably during his years teaching at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1953 to 1974. A great admirer of William Blake, Baskin illustrated and printed many of his own works in addition to collaborative projects.