London-based artist Glen Baxter, born in Leeds in 1944, is known internationally for his absurdist compositions and philosophical texts. Some years ago, the French government bestowed on him the title Chevalier des Art et des Lettres, which sums up the delirious combination of images and words that make his work so instantly recognisable.

Although widely regarded as a surrealist, Baxter also refers to himself as a “social-realist,” explaining that each work can be traced back to the bizarre and sometimes incongruous events that he has encountered since childhood. This viewing room offers the opportunity to listen to comedic stories of those experiences, giving an insight into Baxter's baffling world and the cowboys, policemen, explorers, and schoolchildren that inhabit it.

This selection of drawings explores his recent artistic practice with a focus on the work created throughout 2020, a year that has provided him with a plethora of socially surreal themes and new terminology. In addition, it reflects on festive works from as early as the 1970s, Baxter's first decade of publishing. 

American critic Mel Gussow, of The New York Times, has likened Baxter to Magritte and S. J. Perelman, and Artforum's Michael Wilson has compared his distinctive style to Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Baxter's artwork is frequently featured in The New Yorker and has appeared in publications such as Vanity Fair, Elle, and Vogue. Exhibitions of Baxter’s drawings and paintings have been held in New York, Paris, San Francisco, London, Munich, Tokyo, and Sydney. His work is in the collections of the Tate Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In May 2016, the New York Review of Books published a collection of Baxter's work Almost Completely Baxter: New and Selected Blurtings.