British cartoonist Glen Baxter, master of the absurd and deadpan humor, has died at the age of 82, the French communications agency Semiose, which represented him, announced on Tuesday.
“We are sad to announce the death of Glen Baxter, which occurred on March 29, 2026 in London, surrounded by his loved ones,” she wrote in a press release, referring to “an illness” without further details. He was less known in his native United Kingdom than in France, where he was established as the king of “British phlegm” and master of the absurd.
His trademark? Rather retro drawings, of great precision, but also of a slightly old-fashioned classicism, populated by impassive characters living in impossible situations and, opposite, a sententiously stated and totally offbeat commentary.
These were published in major newspapers including “Le Monde” in France, and in prestigious magazines such as “Vanity Fair” or the “New Yorker”. Glen Baxter was born on March 4, 1944 in Leeds (northern England) where he studied graphic arts and design.
“Out of step” with the world
After several stays in New York in the 1970s where he learned about poetry, he settled in London. He taught at the great decorative arts museum in the British capital, the Victoria & Albert Museum, from 1967 to 1974. In 2000, during an interview with AFP, he returned to his passion for the world of the absurd and nonsense.
“When I was a child I stuttered terribly and I remember one day my mother sent me to buy buttons. All along the way, very nervous, I repeated to myself the sentence to pronounce and, arriving in the store, I delivered it in one go perfectly but… I had gone to the wrong store, I had entered a furniture store. He added that he felt “out of step” very early on with the world around him.
Glen Baxter leaves a work combining drawing and text. The British newspaper “The Times” recalls, in its obituary article, that the artist was best known for his “greeting cards”. A tribute exhibition will be held from May 23 to June 20, 2026 at the Semiose gallery in Paris, this agency said.
