John Baeder

Baeder was born in South Bend, Indiana on December 24, 1938. His family moved to Atlanta, Georgia when he was a year and a half. While quick to make friends in Atlanta, Baeder had interests quite different than his classmates, and was often at odds with his practical parents. At age 12, he became fascinated with collecting. But instead of the baseball and sports cards that intrigued some of his peers, Baeder was drawn to aircraft. He spent hours scouring magazines devoted to airplanes, absorbed in the mechanical and sculptural details of these flying machines.

Traveling by train as a young boy to visit his mother's family in South Bend, Baeder would stare out of the windows at the passing landscapes. Later he would remember these views as pictures, framed by the window's edges. He loved the trains’ diner cars, a center of activity and hospitality, exotic to his child’s eyes. These memories, and others, would later be reflected in his works as an artist.

At a time and a place when his contemporaries were aspiring to more traditional careers, Baeder had recognized a different path for himself. By age 15, he was attending live drawing classes at the then small High Museum in Atlanta. At 16, Baeder expressed a desire to his parents to attend the Royal College of Art in London. This destination was outside the family means or understanding, but at 17 Baeder found a local alternative: the art department at Auburn University, which had acquired a reputation for its progressive approach.

Traveling between Georgia and Alabama had a profound effect on Baeder. There was no interstate at the time, and driving along Highway 29 and the rural backroads, Baeder was exposed to roadside culture, which he saw as embodying something uniquely American, and for which he developed a lifelong passion.

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