John Baxter (1912–1966) was a sculptor and educator whose assemblages of wood, stone and other found natural materials reflected an experimental approach to sculpture emerging in Northern California during the postwar period. Born in California, Baxter earned a bachelor’s degree from UCLA in 1933 but was largely self-taught as a sculptor. He gathered weathered stones and driftwood from beaches, allowing the character of his materials to guide his compositions. Baxter served as curator of education at the San Francisco Museum of Art from 1956 to 1959 and joined the UC Davis art faculty in 1963. Although his time at Davis was brief, Baxter was part of the first generation of artists assembled by founding chair Richard Nelson that helped establish the department’s culture of material experimentation. Baxter’s work is held in SFMOMA’s permanent collection. In 2016, the Manetti Shrem Museum included him in its inaugural exhibition, Out Our Way, which reconsidered the contributions of UC Davis’ first-generation art faculty.