Since the 1970s Ed Baynard has created his signature watercolor floral still lives.  Inspired in part by Japanese woodblock prints, the works exhibit a uniform flatness, further accentuated by their white or beige background, which engenders a sense of resonant serenity and stillness. The artist’s use of line both adds texture and variation to the color-block aspects of his pieces – as in the occasional use of etched crosshatchings in his prints, or the boldly golden outlined shapes in a series of paintings from 2009 – as well as distinct manifestations of human emotion. The stems of supple pink poppies fancifully twist and bend as if seductively performing for the viewer; in another work, a deep purple pod of lilies hunches over towards an empty green bowl, as if pleading with or bowing down to some wiser universal force.  

The artist’s works can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Tate, London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among many others.