Claire Baxter appointed as official bed race artist for 2024

Claire Baxter has agreed to become the official artist of the Great Knaresborough Bed Race for 2024. She has produced two fabulous paintings of Bed Race, which are available as limited edition numbered full size prints. There will be smaller versions and postcards as well.

Claire is Knaresborough born-and-bred, and has grown up loving the Great Knaresborough Bed Race, the town’s iconic sporting spectacle held each year.

She owns galleries on Castlegate in Knaresborough and on the High Street in Pateley Bridge. The paintings can be viewed at the galleries and orders can be placed there or via her website https://clairebaxterfineart.co.uk

The two paintings are titled Time and Tide and Bed Time. The originals retail at £1,295 for the former and £595 for the latter.

The numbered medium prints sell at £195. Smaller prints are priced at £125 and mini prints are £65. Postcards are available from the galleries at £2 a copy. It has been agreed that 25% of the revenue will go to local Bed Race charities.

“Bed Race is such a special event,” says Claire, “and having experienced it live for so many years I have been inspired to capture its quirkiness on canvas.

“For many, the river crossing is the highlight of the day. I have rendered that and the larger Time and Tide painting incorporates the famous Knaresborough Viaduct.

“We have so much that is famous – bridges, the river, the hills, the Gorge, cobbled streets, parkland – and it all comes together on Bed Race Day,” she added.

Claire is a Knaresborian through and through. Her father, Ron Johnson, was a local policeman here in the 1980s, in which role he contributed to keeping Bed Race the safe family event for which it has become known.

She moved away to study fashion design and began a career in teaching. But she was always more interested in fine art and opened her first gallery in Pateley Bridge five years ago. The Knaresborough gallery started in April 2023.

Asked to define her unique style, she described it as a mixture of illustration and realism. ‘Quirky’ is the word she used, which fits in perfectly with the image of Bed Race itself.

Claire’s galleries sell not only her own work but also that of some of the best Yorkshire artists. Visit https://clairebaxterfineart.co.uk to find out more.