[“He was from Brooklyn all right.” From Almost Completely Baxter: New and Selected Blurtings (2016).]
Glen Baxter, artist, was eighty-two. The Times has a standoffish obituary. “A minor surrealist and major seller of greetings cards” — really? The Guardian calls Baxter “a staple of the greeting cards rack.” Do better.
I am the happy guardian of several Baxter books, mostly bought at the Gotham Book Mart. I once found therein three side-stapled, Gotham-published Baxter volumes from the 1970s, each signed, each with a penciled price of $1.00. Obviously, they were now going to sell for more. I waited while someone walked off to figure it out. After twenty minutes or so, I took the books up to the register, figuring that that’d be a way to finally get a price. The person at the register: “Five dollars?” (Each.) Sold.
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And there’s Glen Baxter’s Instagram.
Friday, April 3, 2026
Glen Baxter (1944–2026)
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I seem to recall that you yourself are from Brooklyn. I know that Mark Twain warned against explaining jokes, but maybe you could explain this one, because I confess I don't get it.
Yes, I’m from Brooklyn. I don’t think there’s a real joke, just delightful strangeness, as if trick knee flaps are a marker of people from Brooklyn. Just silly, as with Baxter’s cowboys looking at modern art or talking about Derrida.
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