“The idea is everything. The technique is just the skin.” —Baseman

Gary Baseman was born in 1960 in Los Angeles, California (in “Hollywood” to be exact), a first generation American of Polish descent. His parents struggled to survive WWII coming from a town where 4,000 Jews were reduced to 200, after the Nazis Germany invasion in collaboration with the Ukraine. All his grandparents were killed during the war, and the rest of the siblings were displaced. His parents moved to United States instilled with the belief in the “American Dream;” and when Gary was born they educated him to “be hard working and a good person.” He grew up with the notion that he could accomplish anything, and today, he has become one of the most influential illustrators of our time.

Baseman graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Communications from UCLA. He worked for an ad agency, in a boring office job that lasted only a year, and he decided to move to New York City to pursue his passion of drawing. He worked as commercial illustrator for ten years, and in that time his illustrations appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, Time, among other publications. He has also worked for international corporate clients such as Nike, Kodak, Chili’s, Gatorade, Mercedes-Benz, Labatt, and Thomas Cook. During the 90s, Baseman was commissioned to create several animation projects for Nickelodeon, which never made it to a screen. He was beginning to feel eager about relocating to Los Angeles, and in 1997 he moved back with his wife Mel. He was now more confident about finding work with his bigger portfolio, even including the two animation pilots that failed with Nickelodeon. Baseman went to film studios trying to sell his ideas; and Disney liked his story about a dog that wanted to be a boy. The dog was named “Spot,” a blue mutt, the protagonist in a forthcoming Saturday morning cartoon show, “Teacher’s Pet” (aired from 2000 to 2002). An idea that emerged from Baseman’s own pet: “We used to have an 18 years old dog, named Hubcaps who passed away last year. He was a good dog. He inspired me to create my TV show.” [1] The artist wondered what his dog Hubcaps did when he and his wife left the house, from that spark of thought he let his imagination flow by allowing a cocker spaniel to explore life as a human. Baseman art directed and executively produced the series as he teamed up with director Timothy Bjorklund and the Steinkellners. The show went on to win three Emmy Awards and a BAFTA — as a result, “Teacher’s Pet” was released as a Disney feature-length animated film in January 16, 2004.

As a kid, Baseman was fond of Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons; he did not try to copy the characters because he always felt it was important to develop his own characters. Today, his artwork is easily recognized for a “Baseman piece” because of its highly consistent style, diverging in theme matters, however devoted to creating wacky cartoon-type animals and humans placed in surreal worlds. Each art piece is like a film, a story begins to unfold slowly to the viewer, as you look two, three, four more times you begin to see more details to the characters that tell an elaborate plot. It is like opening a “Where’s Waldo” book, full of surprises and adventure. And one of his techniques to not forgetting random ideas that surge during the day is resolved with carrying a sketchbook everywhere he goes. In 2002, he was in Japan along side Mark Ryden and Tim Biskup for a collaborative art show called “Hello from Los Angeles,” where he first drew a snowman into his sketchbook. Later in time, the snowman became one of the main characters for a new collection entitled, “Happy Idiot” (a story about a snowman who falls in love with a mermaid). These paintings appeared very innocent and childlike, but in reality they were told in an adult tale about desire, sex, and “the acceptance of man’s attraction to unattainable beauty.” [3] Baseman describes his art genre as: “where the line between genius and stupidity has been smudged beyond recognition.” Indeed, there are these two opposite elements being combined, but that is what makes his art so appealingly different — therefore recognized at the prestigious permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. and the Museum of Modern Art in Rome.

Having a big ego and outrageous goals to accomplish, Baseman is definitely a workaholic who hasn’t stopped with a mere Emmy Award; he paints, designs toys, lectures at Universities, book signs, responds to numerous interviews on radios and magazines, and what else can he do with his time? He is a multi-disciplinary talent whose success has crossed over to these various art fields and audiences. He calls this “Pervasive Art,” i.e. “the notion is that as long as you stay true to your aesthetic, and have a strong sense of meaning, then the work can be appropriate in almost any medium — from print to TV to film to paintings to commerce.” [4] And he goes on to tell us what success is to him: “I know a lot has to do with ‘Dumb Luck’ which is my philosophy. But then again, success has such a personal definition. What makes some one successful? What makes someone happy? For me, it is accomplishments, memories, small joys, experiences... A sold out gallery show. A good review in a major magazine. A pretty girl smiling at you. Your cat jumping on your lap looking for affection. Surprising yourself by creating a new piece of art. A song that grabs your heart...”