This color proof lithograph of Chief Short Bull was signed "For Rose and Yechiael love Lisa and Leonard." The work is part of Baskin's Native American series of the 1970s.

Leonard Baskin's interest in nineteenth century Native Americans was roused into acute attendance from ignorant indifference, when the National Park Service asked him to provide illustrations for the handbook that described the then called "Custer National Park," now called "Little Big-Horn National Park." Baskin's detestation of Custer was as near instantaneous as was his respect for the people of the Sioux. From Hollywood's distortions, cliches, and prevalent bad slogans of the time, Baskin's insight into the vast, resolute, and wanton, destruction of our native populace was matched by his deepening regard for the wisdom and courage of the Sioux and other Indian Chieftains.

In his two series of lithographs of diverse Nineteenth Century Native Americans, Baskin indubitably suggests his profound and ongoing interest in such monumental heroes as Crazy Horse , Red Cloud, and Chief Gaul. In these series of lithographs, he has captured the sense of loss and betrayal felt by these people, as well as the despairing and aloof dignity of the nineteenth century chiefs.

Baskin was one of the universal artists of the twentieth century. He was a sculptor of renown. Reared in New York, Baskin was educated at a yeshiva before going on to Yale. In 1953 he began teaching printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1974. He was a writer and illustrator of books ranging from the Bible to children's stories and natural history. He was a talented water-colorist and a superb, prolific printmaker. His prints ranged from woodcuts through lithography and etching; his subjects covered portraits, flower studies, biblical, classical, and mythological scenes. Baskin's sculpture, watercolors, and prints are in the permanent collections of most of the world's major art galleries and museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Vatican Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Tate Gallery in London. Among Baskin's many commissions are a bas relief he made for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial and the Holocaust Memorial statue erected on the site of the first Jewish cemetery in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Baskin won many awards including the Gold Medal of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, the Special Medal of Merit of the American Institue of graphic Arts, and the Gold Medal of the National Academy of Design.