Agraduate of Custer High School who worked his way through college in Ohio with the help of the ventriloquist dummy he carvedfrom balsa wood, Baer was drafted into the Army shortly after the Korean Warand posted to Japan,where he spent much of his time drawing cartoons for Stars and Stripes and various camp newspapers. Returning to Milwaukee in 1956, he juggled free-lancing with a steadyjob at the old Milwaukee Journal,where, among many other tasks, he executed a cartoon strip that ran at thebottom of the front page of the Sunday comics below “Peanuts” and “Garfield.” It wasactually a paid advertisement for Ned’s Pizza, but as Baer recalls, “I could dowhatever I wanted to do with it, as long as I included the pizza coupon.”
Cartoonswere Baer’s primary inspiration, especially the understated, unemphatic humorof Charles Schulz. “My grandmother lived out in the country and papered thewalls of her outhouse with comic strips. I’d sit there for hours reading them.It was a definite factor in my liking for cartooning,” he explains.
Baer hasalso drawn such lost local landmarks as Sydney Hih in the rainbow-hued ’70s andToy’s, once Milwaukee’spremier Chinese restaurant. In recent years his style became more whimsical,almost “Alicein Wonderland” in nature, with anthropomorphic toads and friendly beetlespeering from cracked teacups. Some recent works, including covers for the Shepherd Express, resemble thegood-natured cartoons of the ’70s underground press, minus the mind-expandingdrugs.
“My ViewFrom 80” will be on display at Wauwatosa Public Library’s Firefly Room, 7635 W. North Ave.,through September and October, and will move from there to Landmarks Gallery, 231 N. 76th St.
Art Happenings
“Art inClay”
Milwaukee Art Museum
700 N. Art Museum Drive
Eighteenth-centuryMoravian immigrants in the Carolinas created earthenware of startling beautywith designs rooted in Europe, Asia and the Near East.Opens Sept. 2 in the Decorative Arts Gallery.
“BayView Observatory”
Bay ViewHistorical Society
2590 S. Superior St.
This isyour last chance to catch the eye-popping, larger-than-life outdoor display onthe people and history of Bay View, created by local high-school students andDiscovery World (through Sept. 5).
