Samuel Henry Baker Explained

Samuel Henry Baker (1824–1909) was an English landscape artist. He was a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) and the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (RE). He painted rural landscape scenes in watercolour.

Samuel Henry Baker was born in Birmingham, the son of Thomas Baker who was a manager at Matthew Boulton's Soho Works.[1] He was apprenticed to James Chaplin, a magic lantern-slide painter and trained at the Birmingham School of Design. He also took lessons from the landscape painter, Joseph Paul Pettitt who had been a pupil of Joseph Vincent Barber. It was possibly through Pettit that Baker inherited the distinctive drawing style of the Birmingham School with its clear outlines and bold cross hatching.[2] He exhibited over five hundred paintings at the RBSA from 1848 to 1909 and was elected a member in 1868.[3]

His older son Oliver (1856–1939) was also an artist and a designer of note,[4] while his younger son Harold (1860-1942) was a noted photographer.[5]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Flynn. Brendan. A Place for Art: The Story of the RBSA. 2014. The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. 978-0-9930294-0-0.
  2. Book: Wildman. Stephen. The Birmingham School. 1990. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Birmingham. 46.
  3. Book: Morris. Sidney. Morris. Kathleen. A Catalogue of Birmingham & West Midlands Painters of the Nineteenth Century. 1974. Stratford-upon-Avon.
  4. http://www.bmagic.org.uk/people/Oliver+Baker Oliver Baker
  5. http://www.libraryofbirmingham.com/article/1318251899906 Harold Baker Collection - Library of Birmingham