William Baxter

William Baxter spent his life drawing the same street scene over and over, tweaking one small detail each time: a shadow lengthened, a window opened, a lone figure stepped into the frame. In 1887 he left the final version on the table uncollected; it turned up years later in a shoebox of old receipts. The work isn’t flashy, but it’s a quiet record of how a single block can change under the same light. Look up his “Untitled (c 1887)” and compare it to the 1885 version—spot the difference and you’ve just entered Baxter’s obsession.