Portrait of an Irishman, Sean O'Casey 1952

Leonard Baskin made this print, Portrait of an Irishman, Sean O'Casey, probably sometime in the mid to late twentieth century. I imagine Baskin, intensely focused, using chisels and gouges to carve away at the woodblock. I’m thinking about the energy, the physicality of making an image like this. Look at those emphatic cuts that build form and shadow on O’Casey’s face and clothes. There's an expressionistic edge in those furious lines. See how his hand clutches his head? It's like he's wrangling with something profound. Baskin was really into literature and myth, and you see that in his work. It feels like he's channeling deep human emotions, the kind you find in great plays and stories. This portrait reminds me a bit of those old woodcuts by artists like Dürer, but with a more modern sensibility. Artists, right? Always riffing off each other. We're all just having this big conversation across time. It's wild.