John Baeder

John Baeder’s paintings of roadside American eateries and everyday locales are based on photographs he took during road trips across the country. Charlie’s Diner was located in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the first lunch cart was invented. Always devoid of people, Baeder’s diners quietly preserve and celebrate the built environment of a rapidly disappearing era. Personalized, hand-painted signage adds to the sense of nostalgia. “Charlie’s is a small painting, but there’s a strange bigness to it,” Baeder has noted. “The shadow grew and moved in on Charlie’s as [it] sat comfortably at rest preparing for dusk.”