Born in 1922 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Baskin studied sculpture with Maurice Glickman at the Educational Alliance, New York City, from 1937 to 1943. He had many influences at that time including Ossip Zadkine, Henri Laurens, and Alexander Archipenko. 

In 1949, he began to make wood engravings, and his attitude toward the nature of man grew more generalized, but no less moralistic or didactic. In style these works are closest to German Die Brucke prints. At this time he studied abroad at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris and the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence. During this period, he became familiar with significant European art collections, many of which helped release in him the sculptural images he has since used. For many years, he was a professor of sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts." Excerpted from www.AskArt.com