Views from the Road: A Retrospective of Lawrence Baker
When Cleveland artist, Lawrence Baker reminisces about his youth, he talks about looking out the windows from the back of a green 1953 Chevrolet while driving with his family non-stop from Jacksonville, Florida to relatives in Savannah, Georgia. In his mind, the views that passed beyond the car windows merged into various frozen images. During the last few years Baker has been expressing this vision in masterful graphite drawings of trees, rocks and grass, some throwing large shadows that he adds with an acrylic wash.
The Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (AAWR) will show these drawings along with the artist’s earlier figurative paintings in “Views from the Road: A Retrospective of Lawrence Baker,” January 16 – February 21, 2014.
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Lawrence Baker left a difficult youth of poverty and discrimination and became a success in Cleveland, OH. He studied art at Cuyahoga Community College and Kent State University where he graduated with an M.F.A. in 1989. He taught art in various schools in greater Cleveland for 30 years. In 2011 he became an Archived Artist of the AAWR and in 2012 he received a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, OH.
Artists Archives of the Western Reserve
1834 East 123rd Street
Cleveland, OH 44106
216.721.9020
Member Holiday Show
November 22 – December 20, 2013
Views from the Road: A Retrospective of Lawrence Baker
January 16 – February 21, 2014
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Lawrence Baker, Continuum III, 2013. Graphite and acrylic wash, 60″ x 40.” Courtesy of the artist