John Baeder’s Road Well Taken

Echoing Paul Gauguin’s momentous decision of a century earlier, John Baeder, in 1972, suddenly made up his mind to forgo the growing riches of a career on Madison Avenue to become a full-time painter. His masterful technique inevitably put him at the forefront of the growing photo-realist movement, along with Ralph Goings and Richard Estes. Baeder’s paintings, particularly of vintage diners, were an immediate art world success, and this led him to continue scouring the countryside for prime examples to document before they all vanished from this earth. His dedicated efforts at capturing and preserving the remnants of this treasured phenomenon led to the publication of his famous book ‘Diners’, which remained in print for the better part of two decades, only to be followed by a revised edition. In this new, authoritative volume, Williams concentrates on providing a full account of Baeder’s remarkable life and, through many interviews, the inside story of his multifaceted career. With more than 300 illustrations of his highly collectible paintings, watercolours, vintage photographs, printed ephemera and three-dimensional memorabilia, John Baeder’s Road Well Taken is as fully a fascinating first-hand trip through the evocative remnants of a vanishing America as it is the deserving portrait of an artist who so successfully (and permanently) captured for the general public the nostalgic essence of what’s been lost.