Lone Star College-Kingwood Lone Star College–Kingwood presents Gerard Baldwin
Decades Paintings and Drawings 1940–2010
DecemberDecember 17—February 17–February 11, 112010 Reception/Artist Talk: Friday, Dec 17 5:30–7:30pm
Hours: Mon–Thu 11am–5pm For more information: 281.312.1534 LoneStar.edu/Kingwood Affirmative Action/EEO College Affirmative Action/EEO College 2 LoneLone Star Star College–Kingwood College–Kingwood presents presents Lone Star College–Kingwood presents GerardGerard BaldwinBaldwin
Lone Star College–Kingwood presents Gerard Baldwin
DecadesDecades PaintingsPaintings and and Drawings Drawings Paintings and Drawings 1940–20101940–2010 1940–2010 DecemberDecember 17–February17–February 1111 December 17–February 11 Reception/ArtistReception/Artist Talk: Talk: Friday,Friday,Reception/Artist Dec Dec 17 17 5:30–7:30pm 5:30–7:30pm Talk: Friday, Dec 17 5:30–7:30pm
Decades Hours: Mon–Thu 11am–5pm Hours: Mon–Thu 11am–5pm For more information: Hours: ForMon–Thu more information: 11am–5pm Paintings and Drawings 281.312.1534 For more281.312.1534 information: 1940–2010 LoneStar.edu/Kingwood281.312.1534 LoneStar.edu/KingwoodAffirmative Action/EEO College LoneStar.edu/KingwoodAffirmative Action/EEO College Affirmative Action/EEO College December 17–February 11 Reception/Artist Talk: 3 Friday, Dec 17 5:30–7:30pm
Hours: Mon–Thu 11am–5pm For more information: 281.312.1534 LoneStar.edu/Kingwood Affirmative Action/EEO College All are mixed media (pen, ink, Prismacolor pencil, acrylic, and Prismacolor markers), except where noted.
4 Gerard Baldwin
Gerard Baldwin’s formal art training came from The Chouinard Art Institute (now California Institute of the Arts), and the Institute Allende in Mexico. David Alfaro Siqueros was one of his mentors. Baldwin comes from an artistic clan that dates back to Felix the Cat and Snow White.
In 1950, he began an apprenticeship at United Productions of America, a prestigious animation studio. This apprenticeship was interrupted by the Korean War. The Army assigned him to the National Security Agency. Two years later he returned from Korea and resumed his apprenticeship at UPA. Thus began a rapid rise in the little world of animation that spans more than fifty years.
Some of the animated films that are a showcase for Baldwin’s talent include Mr. Magoo, Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle, Yogi Bear, the Grinch, Aladdin, the Flintstones, and the Smurfs.
During this time, Baldwin was also pursuing serious painting but one morning, while shaving, he had the sudden realization that he was not Pablo Picasso. It was not too painful. Perhaps the realization was a blessing because it plunged him into an intense and continuous effort to be the best animator he could be. His first job as an animation director was in 1959 on Jay Ward’s Rocky & Bullwinkle show. He worked on and off for the Ward Studio through 1967.
In the following decades, Baldwin went from series to series, from primetime special to primetime special, from commercial to commercial, as a happy hired gun. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including eight Emmy nominations and three Emmys.
In 1989, Baldwin moved to Houston where he intended to retire, but that did not happen. As a long distance freelance director, there was less work but there was also more time to draw and paint. “Painting,” Baldwin says, “is closer to writing poetry than it is to filmmaking. Making an animated cartoon is a collective effort. When painting, you are quite alone, not like conducting a symphony, but more like whistling in the dark.”
5 My Father (Pop), 1947 20 x 24 inches, mixed (oil)
6 Still Life, 1963 19 x 25 inches
7 New Snow, 1977 23 x 29 inches, ink on paper
8 The Black Sun, 1992 22 x 30 inches
9 Crossing the Border, 1992 22 x 30 inches
10 Monopoly, 1992 16 x 34 inches
11 Soul Rising, 1992 21 x 30 inches
12 Spot, the Wonderbird, 1996 20 x 26 inches
13 175 Spiders, 2006 11 x 17 inches
14 Brainstorm, 2006 11 x 17 inches
15 4th of July, 2006 11 x 17 inches
16 Freight, 2006 11 x 17 inches
17 Night Visitors, 2006 11 x 17 inches
18 Please, Don’t., 2006 11 x 17 inches
19 Roadkill, 2006 11 x 17 inches
20 Souls Rising, 2006 11 x 17 inches
21 Spiderlilly, 2006 11 x 17 inches
22 World War III, 2006 11 x 17 inches
23 I Am You and You Are Me, 2007 17 x 46 inches
24 First Church of the Paleocene, 2009 10 x 24 inches
25 Paleocene Vista, 2009 9 x 24 inches
26 Dwelling, 2010 10 x 16 inches
27 Eve, 2010 10 x 23 inches
28 The First Pyramid, 2010 10 x 24 inches
29 Impact, 2010 14 x 22 inches
30 Invention, 2010 6 x 4 inches
31 The Magic Pool, 2010 10 x 23 inches
32 Winter Solstice, 2010 10 x 23 inches
33 34 I find it hard to believe that it’s been nearly 7 years since the Kingwood College Art Gallery honored me with a retrospective of my drawings and paintings: DECADES 1947-2003.
I’m writing this commentary early in the morning. Outside it is still dark. The high-ceilinged walls of this room give space to thirty of my paintings. The oldest is a portrait of my father, dated 1947.
The most recent is a self-portrait dated 2015. I look just like him.
Well over a hundred drawings and paintings fill this house and hundreds more are scattered across the country. They display a broad spectrum of styles and a viewer might assume they were not the work of the same hand. I sometimes wonder if they still speak to their owners or have they become just bits of interior decoration. You can’t ask.
Most artists have a style, a graphic point of view that, over a life-time of work, never seems to change. They are comfortable and they perfect and polish their style. A painter like John Singer Sargent comes to mind.
Other artists, fewer in number, change their interpretation of the world many times. Pablo Picasso is probably the most outstanding example.
With no comparison intended I also quickly tire of a particular graphic point of view or technique. My current paintings are very, very different from how I was seeing things in 2003 and miles away from the paintings produced 65 years ago.
I clearly remember a painting that I made in Art School. I sold it to a fellow student for a few tacos, my first sale. It was a low angle view of a brick wall. There was a full moon bisected by a telephone pole.
As an animator I spent 60 years making still drawings come alive. This requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief and, no doubt, this experience has influenced my paintings - but I can’t say how nor will I try.
Someone once said to me “your stuff is all over the place.” I guess that means eclectic. Someone else told me they saw my art as a cross between Rene Magritte and Dr. Seuss with a dash of Disney. That’s okay by me.
What gives continuity to my art is not a graphic “style” but the repeated appearance of a few props that might be seen as Icons: wide horizons, vast plains, distant mountains, night skies, full moons, telephone poles, humans rarely present; always diminutive, even tiny.
I don’t feel I’m a part of the contemporary Art Scene or what Time critic Robert Hughes labeled the “New Avantguardism,” where a picture is not worth a thousand words, but requires a thousand words of “Art Speak” to be understood. Hopefully my stuff speaks for itself.
Gerard Baldwin, 2015
35 Credits LSC-Kingwood Media - Jason Watson, Diana Sorenson LSCK TV - Garrick Joubert, Edwin Brega, Dan Ko Designs in Print - Pamela Clarke Graphic Artist - T.C. Robson
LSC-Kingwood Fine Art Gallery 20000 Kingwood Drive Kingwood, TX 77339-3801 Phone 281.312.1534 LoneStar.edu/Kingwood Affirmative Action/EEO College