Leonard Baskin created several series of prints honouring artists he admired.

Currently on display at the McMaster Museum of Art are five pieces from his book Twelve Sculptors: a book of monotypes with short notes on the monotypes and the sculptors (1988).

Of his numerous honorary portraits, Baskin wrote:

“I can but speculate as to why I have been put to the ardent making of homages to artists of the past, and in inordinate numbers. It is not, I feel certain, an act of simple or complex, straightforward or devious, obeisance, from a poor contemporary thing to the titans of the past: I suffer in myself no false humility. Rather, this near-blizzard of portraits-in-homage is the anxiety-obsessed wail emitted by an artist who feels isolated and under siege. It is the stretched, the harassed call of comrades-in-arms, for re-enforcing help and fighting strength, for justification, for reassurance, a battering on the door of history to send witnesses to plead his cause, to usurp the enemies who have so wantonly seized power and control.”
(Baskin, Iconologia, (1988): 1)

Here are the five portraits of sculptors now on view, alongside a photograph of a public sculpture by that particular artist:

Elie Nadelman, 1882-1946, American

John Flanagan, 1865-1952, American

A sculptor who designed the Washington U.S. quarter dollar coin, which was issued in 1932.

Andrew O’Connor, 1874-1941, American-Irish