A fascinating trip through the evocative remnants of a vanishing
America, this book is also a portrait of an artist who has captured the
nostalgic essence of what's been lost. In 1972, John Baeder (b. 1938)
left a career on Madison Avenue to become a full-time painter, gambling
his livelihood on art dealer Ivan Karp's evaluation of his first four
canvases: a diner, a motel, a gas station, a tourist camp. Based on
color postcards in his growing collection of roadside memorabilia, they
launched a career that put him at the forefront of the growing
photorealist movement. Baeder's paintings, particularly of classic
diners, were an immediate success, and he scoured the country for prime
examples to document before they disappeared. Here, Jay Williams
recounts the inside story of Baeder's multifaceted career. With more
than 300 illustrations of his highly collectible paintings, watercolors,
vintage photographs, printed ephemera, and three-dimensional
memorabilia, this is an artist's journey, traveled along the back
highways of the United States.