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Leonard Baskin (1922–2000) was an award-winning American draughtsman, sculptor, graphic artist, and founder of the Gehenna Press. His print style typically consisted of bold black-and-white prints made from limestone, bronze, or wood (sometimes large-scale woodcuts). His art often depicted disproportionate humanoid figures, sometimes morphing with animals, and dealt with themes of Judaism, the Holocaust, and morality. Baskin’s work was included in over 40 exhibitions throughout his career, and his work has been acquired by numerous major public collections worldwide.

Baskin was born on August 15, 1922, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His father and brother were rabbis, and he attended a Jewish religious college. His religious background and training had a profound impact on his work, especially in his dealings with Judaism and the Holocaust. Baskin's focus on themes of morality and religion allowed him to create figurative work that respected tradition, putting him in direct contrast to the American Abstract Expressionist movement occurring simultaneously.

From a young age, he decided that he would become a sculptor and spent much of his youth experimenting with art. His first solo show was held at the Glickman Studio Gallery in New York in 1939. The first major exhibition of his work was held in 1956 at the Boris Mirski Gallery in Boston. Baskin’s work was included in another 40 shows throughout his career. In 1966, filmmaker Warren Forma made a film featuring Baskin, titled Images of Leonard Baskin, and in 1994 he received two significant commissions. The first was of a seated figure in bronze for the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Holocaust Memorial, and the second was for a 30-foot-tall bas relief for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. Baskin’s prints, sculptures, and paintings have been collected by numerous major institutions, including the Vatican Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From 1941 to 1943, Baskin attended Yale University. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he went to the New School for Social Research in New York to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. He then went on to study abroad in Paris and Florence for the following two years. He returned to the United States to teach printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1953 to 1974 and Hampshire College in Amherst from 1984 to 1994. It was during his years at Yale, however, that Baskin founded the Gehenna Press, a fine art press that printed over 100 books during its run from 1942 to 2000. Many of the prints and books produced/published by the Gehenna Press went on to win awards, including the Gold Medal for the National Academy of Design and the National Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. In 1992, the Library of Congress organized a retrospective exhibition for the Press’s 50-year anniversary.