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Graeme Baxter |
The Golf Artist - Graeme Baxter interview
By Alex Nicolson
It would be fair to say that golf art has become dominated by one man. Official artist to the Open, the Ryder Cup, the President's Cup, the PGA and the European Tour, Graeme Baxter is synonmous with images of the best courses.
Premium Golf caught up with him as the 2004 season was winding down, to find out more about the man behind the paintings. Hard to do nowadays since he resides in Palm Desert, California. Having recently opened his first gallery in the States, he is busy working on new commissions. This summer he was signed up to be the official artist for another major tournament - the Kraft Nabisco championship, held at Mission Hills Golf and Country Club, Palm Springs.
Graeme Baxter was born in 1958, and a childhood fascination with art took him later on to study at the Glasgow school of art, in the footsteps of Rennie MacIntosh, a student there eighty years earlier. Baxter was a fine art dealer for a decade, until it dawned on him that, his hobby, painting golf courses, could become a full time profession. His first painting, one of the Old Course at St. Andrews, was shown to Sir Michael Bonnalack, later Secretary for the R&A, who proclaimed it to be the best golf painting he had ever seen.
Graeme explained that at that time, golf paintings didn't really exist as such, and there was certainly not a market for them. However, supported by his father, and encouraged by the fact that his first painting sold for £700, he did more paintings and began producing prints also. From here his popularity grew and grew, and he was commissioned for some fabulous courses around the globe.
I asked him what his aim was when starting such a work. "I'm essentially trying to create a record of golf history", he explains. "Whereas other artists often try to present a perfect image of a course, with almost air-brushed precision, I want to capture a more natural feel of the course". As such, occasionally you will spot the odd divot appear in the foreground, or some threatening clouds in the sky. His engaging style of painting does something for the observer that few golf artists achieve - he makes you feel you are actually playing the hole. However, only the real enthusiast will truly appreciate the finer details in his work. Subtle features such as capturing the clouds and flags moving with the prevailing wind on the featured hole, help stand Baxter's work apart.
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17th Hole Royal St. Georges |
"It's simple", he continues, "I have a passion for golf, I have a passion for art - in these paintings, I combine the two. It did strike me that it wasn't a bad way to make a living. He was given two days at Augusta to paint, without a soul on the course to disturb him.
And make a living he clearly does. His paintings are owned by Messrs Beckham, Chris De Burgh and Eddie Shah, not to mention the golfers. Both Lee Westwood and Darren Clark have commissioned him to paint pictures to commemorate tournament wins (in Japan and Spain respectively). His highest seller? The official painting for the 2000 British Open sold to a group of members from the Old Weaverly Golf Club, Mississippi for $450,000.
Hence the popularity for his depictions of championship venues, with both those fortunate to have played the course themselves, and those who have just marvelled at it on television.
For example, his limited edition print here of Royal St. George's, home of the 2003 Open Championship. It depicts a tantalising view of the par 4, 17th hole. One can almost feel the thump of a firmly struck sand wedge needed to escape the deep bunkers that guard this green. If you can't get on the golf course as often as you'd like, picturing yourself playing out of one of Baxter's bunkers is an agreeable alternative.
To see Graeme's collection click here.
| Weiskopf sets his heart on an artistic treasure Featured in the Daily Telegraph 16.7.04 during the Open week at Troon Tom Weiskopf, the champion here in 1973, is only 61 but is already planning for the time when the final fairway leads to the Pearly Gates. He lives in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and is keen to invest in some of Graeme Baxter's art, "as a legacy from me to my family". According to Baxter, who is the official artist to the R&A, Weiskopf wants a painting of the third hole at Loch Lomond, which the American is redesigning, and the 18th at Troon, for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, the £18,000 official original, which Baxter painted of Royal St George's, is still available, with the artist hoping that Ben Curtis will pop by to inspect it. The Troon original has already been sold to a private collector." By Claire Middleton |