Leonard Baskin | Original drawings for The Rainbow Press, 1975

Property of Frieda Hughes

Leonard Baskin

Original drawings for The Rainbow Press, 1975

5 sheets of handmade paper, with the following illustrations:

i. Design for The Rainbow Press colophon, faint manuscript caption in pencil ("THE | RAINBOW PRESS"), earlier discarded design on verso with manuscript explanation by Baskin: "my abandoned first putrid try, useless | because I did not restructure the problems!", 142 x 197mm., cigarette stains on recto and verso;

ii. Composition with white star symbol against a black background, 98 x 144mm.;

iii. Illustrations of two spiked and furry insect-creatures on recto, fish-insect sketch on verso, 202 x 146mm.;

iv. Illustration of umbrella-like flower/creature on recto, ribbony body on verso, 192 x 148mm.;

v. Illustration of leech-type creature with central mouth and teeth, signed by the artist in lower right corner, 195 x 140mm.

Leonard Baskin had befriended Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes when they were living in Northampton, MA, in 1957-1958. Baskin taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College from 1953-1973. The friendship flourished after their return to England and Baskin continued to collaborate with Hughes for decades, indeed right up to Hughes' death in 1998.

Baskin founded his own private press, known as the Gehenna Press, in 1942, whilst still a student at Yale. Hence, Olwyn Hughes acknowledged how fortuitous it was that Baskin lived in Devon during the lifetime of the Rainbow Press, since he was a "great bookmaker himself with many years of experience".

For the Rainbow Press see lot 369.