Gary Baseman

received his B.A. from UCLA in 1982. Since then he has had an extraordinary and diverse career as what he has termed, “a pervasive artist.” He has exhibited around the world… Rome, Los Angeles, New York, Taipei, Barcelona and Charlottesville, Virginia, and that was just in the last year! He recently had a solo exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California Art and at the Laguna Art Museum. Baseman’s drawings have appeared in numerous magazines, including Time, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and The New York Times. He is the threetime Emmy award-winning creator and executive producer of “Teacher’s Pet,” the animated series and film. He also created the artwork for the award-winning game Cranium and has designed a number of collectible vinyl toys. Chronicle Books published a monograph of Baseman’s work entitled, “Dumb Luck,” in 2004. He is represented by Billy Shire Fine Arts in Los Angeles, Modernism in San Francisco and the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York. (www.garybaseman.com)

In The Ultimate Sacrifice, Baseman places “The Happy Idiot” (the snowman) and his love (the mermaid) both adorable iconic characters, in a dark and perversely humorous conundrum—in order for her to have water, he has to melt. Baseman’s use of garish blues and pinks are somehow soothing to the soul. He is a master of his craft who truly deserves his cult following.