Customer Reviews

Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats along the Way: The Paintings of John Baeder

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For 30 years, Atlanta-born artist John Baeder has been known for his atmospheric depictions of diners, which were disappearing from American highways and byways when Baeder began painting them in the '70s; in fact, many of Baeder's subjects are buildings in various stages of deterioration (plenty of metaphor there!). Over the year, "roadside retro" since become a subject that resonates not just with collectors but the American public in general. As for diners, those icons of the American road they have resurged big-time, at least in the Northeast (albeit in gltizy, supersize versions), for an eating public hungry for nostalgia.
We can give most of the credit to Baeder for both trends.
The University Press of Mississippi's "Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats Along the Way: The Paintings of John Baeder" is a good survey of Baeder's work that includes not only his newer diner images but lots of lesser-known gems, such as his paintings of Los Angeles taco trucks.
The book is a knockout, although bigger would have been better: As devotees of Baeder's work are aware, he's done a lot of fantastic images yet unpublished in book form. Nonetheless, "Pleasant Journeys" will definitely hook the uninitiated; "roadside" devotees, who know him well, will find even more to appreciate. I guarantee: Leave this book on your desk in your office wheere your coworkers can see it, or in your living room when guests are over, and it will be picked up and passed around in no time flat.

John Baeder is one of the most talented artists to come out of the photo-realist school of the 1960's. This volume is a survey of his painting career and catalogs a current traveling museum show that will be in Asheville, NC this summer and in his home town of Nashville, TN in December. Anyone who is interested in the built landscape of the 20th Century, masterful painting or Diners and their history, will truly treasure this volume. It's just interesting on a number of different levels from history to architecture to our social culture to art. It's a very nicely made paper cover book and is quite reasonably priced.

Baeder never disappoints - since I can't affford one of his paintings, this book helps to assuage those longings - great prints - text is informative - a must for diner and roadside architecture fans - IBGB