The son of a welder, Glen Baxter was born in Leeds on 4 March 1944. He studied painting and lithography at Leeds College of Art (1960-5). After graduating he moved to Leytonstone in north London and taught at a local primary school. In the late 1960’s, he was writing poetry and began working with alternative theatre groups in London, writing scripts and even performing.
In 1970 Glen began teaching at a school in Islington where he met his wife Carole. In the same year, Glen’s poems and short stories were first published in the New York magazine Adventures in Poetry.
He was invited to New York to perform with The Poetry Project, to great success. Glen worked part-time at Goldsmiths’ College between 1974 and 1986 while continuing to write, draw, paint and travel.
Upon returning to London from a trip to America in 1978, Glen began to combine words and images in the cartoon format that he has become renowned for today. Amongst Surrealist artists, Glen admires the combination of the absurd alongside Magritte’s ‘bland, academic, painterly style’. This influence is easily seen in his own work, as his mismatched visual art and captions leave the viewer wrong-footed, and often laughing. His work is also based on the style of much English children’s illustration of the thirties and forties, especially stories of school and adventure. He creates worlds in which dysfunctional families battle with Heath Robinson style contraptions, and where cowboys duel over Rothko paintings. His illustrative work first appeared in 1979 with his collection of drawings titled Atlas, published by De Harmonie in Amsterdam. In 1980 London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts exhibited a small selection of his works and it was quickly picked up on in reviews by the Times and Guardian, leading to great attention in literary circles. Ever since he worked as a full-time artist, continuing to publish books across a variety of international publishing houses and exhibiting his artwork worldwide.
His notable editorial contributions include work for the New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair and Le Monde. Many of his drawings are also widely available as greetings cards, and on merchandise such as ceramic plates and wristwatches. In 1997, the Chris Beetles Gallery hosted the launch of Glen Baxter’s Gourmet Guide. This was followed by the exhibitions ‘Blizzards of Tweed’ (1999) and ‘Trundling Grunts’ (2002).
In recent years Glen has exhibited in London several times at Flowers Gallery with the solo shows ‘Glen Baxter: The Soul in Torment, Parts I & II’ (2012), ‘Tofu Walk With Me’ (2015), ‘Furtive Loomings’ (2017), ‘Unflinchingly Gamboge’ (2020) and ‘Inexplicably Vermillion’ (2022). In November 2024 the gallery hosted the exhibition; ‘Intermittently Ochre’.
A major retrospective exhibition, 'The Chaotic Cortex', was held at Chris Beetles Gallery in December 2024. The Gallery continues to hold a significant collection of Glen Baxter's best and most surreal works.
Glen Baxter passed away on 29 March 2026. A link to his obituary can be found here:
