Hydrogen Man

The son of a rabbi, Leonard Baskin often made art that had a strong moral message. He created The Hydrogen Man soon after learning of the United States’ hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific, and the miscalculation that led to the rapid worldwide spread of radioactive fallout.

Baskin’s Hydrogen Man seems to have been mutated and twisted by radiation, his body distorted, given shape by repeated, interweaving, and overlapping lines. Baskin often used such lines to create a sense of form and shape in his figures, but here the lines suggest a view inside the body, an anatomical rendering of a nervous or circulatory system gone awry. The large size of the print makes it difficult to look away. The monumental, life-sized body stands fully upright in front of us, facing us, forcing us to confront a monster of our own making.