Venues

A Look Back at a Life in Pictures: Photographs by Gordon Baer
October 1–31

Artist Talk and Exhibition Reception  
Sunday October 14, 2 pm–4 pm

For more than fifty years, Gordon Baer described the world around him with sympathy and concern. His work was credited in the 1965 passage of the Kentucky Strip-Mine Bill: “... This young man crawled through thickets, mud slides, flash floods, and choked culverts to obtain the pictures which shocked Governor Breathitt and called nationwide attention to our plight.” In 1966, Baer became staff photographer for the Cincinnati Post & Times-Star, leaving the publication after five years to pursue his career as a freelancer. He covered a multitude of assignments, ranging from strip mining to microsurgery, executive portraits, annual report photography, aerials, architecture, and the probing and reporting of social issues. His awards include National Headliners Award and various local, regional, and such national honors as the University of Missouri-sponsored “Picture of the Year” recognition awards. His coverage of posttraumatic stress syndrome (published in the 1984 book Vietnam: The Battle Comes Home) garnered the University of Missouri/National Press Photographers Association/Nikon World Understanding Award. 

Baer’s notable subjects include Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Buckminster Fuller, James Baldwin, Rita Dove, Lorin Maazel, The Beatles, and Larry Flynt. Baer’s photograph of Pete Rose was the reference point for Andy Warhol’s well-known screen print.
 

The Baker Hunt Art and Cultural Center is the legacy of Margaretta Baker Hunt, who established the eponymous foundation in 1922 in furtherance of the study of the arts, education, and science. Today the sprawling 3.5-acre campus contains two preserved mansions, a 1920s-era auditorium, and meticulously manicured Victorian gardens. Baker Hunt is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing “…professional art instruction in a compelling learning environment for the enrichment of studies in the Arts and Humanities.”