Gary Baseman draws on LA restaurant menus for his new show at Johnie's

Minutes before the opening of his latest exhibition, artist Gary Baseman, dressed like a retro diner chef in a red-and-orange jumpsuit, white apron and hat, walked through Johnie's Coffee Shop, moving art frames from one counter to another and adjusting the position of a cartoon cat stuffed animal.

The exhibit, “Off the Menu,” taking place at the long-closed restaurant at Wilshire and Fairfax Streets, is Baseman’s first solo exhibition in his hometown in more than a decade.

Featuring about 40 colored pencil drawings — mostly on actual menus from LA restaurants — the whimsical show is a love letter to his Fairfax neighborhood. It launched Friday in conjunction with the opening of the Wilshire and Fairfax subway stations and is scheduled to run through June 14.

“[Fairfax District] “It was a special place,” he said during a telephone interview Thursday. His mother worked at Canter's Deli down the street from Johnie's. “Here the Hasidic Jews and the punks lived side by side in harmony.”

The show, a tribute to L.A.'s food culture, features drawings in Baseman's signature “dream reality” style that combines real-world surroundings – including his dining companions – with mythical creatures from his universe and fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White. Featured restaurants include classic eateries Musso & Frank, Canter's Deli and Genghis Cohen, as well as relative newcomers such as Jon & Vinny's, Coucou and Max & Helen's.

The lion's share of his menu drawings were created in the two to three hours he spent enjoying his food and chatting with his tablemates. Occasionally he challenges himself by limiting his color palette. Limiting his color choices speeds up the drawing process and pushes him to create something new, he said.

Baseman has lived in LA almost his entire life, except for the decade he spent working as an illustrator in New York. As the child of Holocaust survivors, “I was kind of the American dream accident baby,” he said Thursday. His parents' experiences with totalitarianism shaped his view of the world.

“I fell in love with the Statue of Liberty at a young age, and the idea of ​​free speech and the First Amendment were everything to me,” Baseman said.

A free spirit, he never formally studied art because he did not want his work to be influenced by the opinions of professors. Instead, he studied communications at UCLA.

Baseman's work combines the worlds of fine art and toy making. His last LA show, 2013's The Door Is Always Open, toured the Skirball Cultural Center into a living and dining room inspired by his childhood home. He has worked with Mattel and Coach, designing the crazy cartoon characters for the popular board game Cranium.

Many of the works shown in the exhibition were created in recent years. As the COVID-19 pandemic would have it, Baseman was itching to go out.

“There's a part of me that… [needs] “To create something of value,” he said. “When I'm outside and just existing, I feel like that time has just flown away.” The menu drawings initially served as a way for him to transform his meals into a work of art that celebrated LA's food culture.

Although he doesn't consider himself a foodie, he is a passionate eater. Langer's Deli's No. 19 is the “best sandwich in America,” he says of the pastrami on rye.

Some of the drawings shown in the exhibition are on standard paper and not on menus. One work shows people attending a concert at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. He said he often brings a sandwich from the Cheese Store in Beverly Hills to eat at the cemetery.

Since he never removes pages from his sketchbooks, some of the restaurant drawings in his sketchbooks were scanned, printed on thick paper, and laid out as “placemats” on the dining tables. Plush toy versions of his cat and monkey figurines sit on recently upholstered booths in matte orange, cream and red.

Built in 1955 by Googie architects Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, the Space Age cafe opened as Romeo's Times Square and is featured in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' music video for the song “Swingin'” and in films such as 1988's “Miracle Mile.”

Johnie's Coffee Shop hasn't served food to the public in decades. The restaurant closed in 2000 and served as a meeting place for organizers during Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential runs.

Hours before the show opened, Baseman was still thinking about what else he could add. He pointed to a large, faded mural depicting well-dressed dogs drinking in a bar (an original from Johnie's) and noted that he would like to do a version of it with characters from his fantasy universe.

Baseman generally speaks enthusiastically about his work, but becomes more animated when discussing cats.

Like many a cat lover, Baseman pulls out a phone to share videos of his beloved feline muses. His late cat Blackie was a “wise and brilliant” person with a soothing “triple purr.” Bosko had a penchant for jumping on his shoulder.

His current kitties, Beverly and Fairfax, appear as red 3D-printed sculptures and stand on the counter with plates full of burgers and fries.

Then there's Toby, the fictional fez-wearing cartoon cat that Baseman calls his alter ego.

“I always saw myself as a cat,” he said Friday.

Baseman said the nearly 21-year-old character, named after his childhood crush, is an all-knowing keeper of secrets and represents acceptance. Toby is everywhere: in menu drawings, as a leather stuffed animal, as a statue and – on opening day – even in the form of an ice cream parlor.

The line began forming outside the landmark restaurant more than an hour before the official opening. Many curious passersby poked their heads in, wondering if the restaurant was serving food again. (No, but it's a feast for the eyes, replied a worker.)

As the crowds streamed in at 3 p.m., a performer from the Bob Baker Marionette Theater delighted guests with eccentric puppets, including a ginger dog that “barked” and “sniffed” people's shoes.

At one point, Baseman, still dressed in his chef outfit but now sporting sunglasses and a Toby toy, stood on a counter to thank the crowd for coming.