In 1962, the University of Chicago Press published one of the most distinctive and celebrated English-language editions of Homer’s timeless epic, The Iliad of Homer, featuring the acclaimed translation by Richmond Lattimore accompanied by powerful drawings by the renowned American artist Leonard Baskin. This illustrated edition represents a landmark collaboration between scholar and artist, bringing fresh visual interpretation to the ancient tale of the Trojan War.
The translation itself had first appeared in 1951 and quickly established itself as the preeminent English version of the epic, rendered in a free-running six-beat verse that captures both the grandeur and the emotional depth of the original Greek . For this new illustrated edition, Baskin contributed forty-nine full-page drawings made expressly for the volume, executed in pen and ink wash with his characteristic expressionistic power and sculptural intensity. These illustrations, printed by the Meriden Gravure Company on specially manufactured Curtis Tweedweave paper, reproduce with exceptional fidelity the texture and tonality of Baskin’s original drawings.
The physical book itself is a monument of fine printing, measuring approximately 29 centimeters in height and extending to 526 pages . Designed by John B. Goetz, the volume was composed in Monotype Bembo with display lines in Monotype Centaur, printed by Photopress on Warren’s University Text, and bound by Rand McNally in Columbia Mills’ Bradford Linen. The same year, Delphic Arts of New York issued a deluxe portfolio edition titled Drawings for the Iliad, reproducing Baskin’s illustrations in a limited run of 150 copies, with the first ninety accompanied by three original etchings and copies numbered I-LX including an extra suite of etchings printed on Japan Nacre with an original drawing . An exhibition of Baskin’s drawings traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Portland Museum of Art, further cementing the significance of this artistic achievement. Today, copies of the 1962 illustrated edition signed by Baskin are highly sought by collectors.
