CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – The newest exhibit on view at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center asks the viewer to slow down and take a stroll down memory lane. John Baeder: The Scenic Route reflects a story of Americana nostalgia through photographs, paintings, and drawings.
Within the display of fourteen pieces of art on loan from Haynes Galleries in Franklin, Tennessee, this exhibit takes onlookers from 1960s New York to the deep South and beyond through John Baeder’s eyes.
Baeder’s fascination with roadside culture began at an early age. As a young boy he would ride his bike around photographing old relics with a Baby Brownie camera. He went on to study fine art at Auburn University in the late 1950s before launching into a career in advertising. When he went to work in New York City, Baeder was fortunate to have his office located close to the Museum of Modern Art. It was there that his interest in American culture was stimulated by the photographs of Berenice Abbott and Walker Evans. He also felt a connection to the Ashcan painters of the early 1900s, which shows in his devotion to the American scenes that he documents in photography and paint. But instead of focusing on the everyday people like those that came before him, Baeder’s muses are in the form of buildings, signs, and vehicles.
Today John Baeder is considered one of the original artists of the American Photorealism movement. The special selection of roadside photographs on display were commissioned during a long road trip along the historic Route 66 all the way to Los Angeles.
John Baeder has exhibited his work frequently throughout the U.S. and in Paris and London. His works are held in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and others.
John Baeder: The Scenic Route will be on view through November 28. Located at the corner of Second and Commerce Streets, the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center is the second largest general museum in Tennessee. For more information contact Terri Jordan, Exhibits Curator, at 931-648-5780 or terri@customshousemuseum.org.