Barbara Baker (July 9, 1932–October 15, 2021) was a British artist and fashion designer. Her paintings and works on paper in watercolor, pastel, charcoal and pencil include abstract landscapes of England and France, portraits of family, friends, art school mentors and colleagues, life drawings, fashion illustrations, and still life studies.
Barbara was born in Kersal in north Salford, Lancashire to Josephine (née Kalis) and Alec Baker, a furniture manufacturer. She was the identical twin sister of renowned social documentary photographer Shirley Baker (July 9, 1932–September 21, 2014).
The twins moved to Manchester when they were two. Later Barbara boarded with her sister Shirley at Penrhos Girls’ School in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, from where they were evacuated during the Second World War to Chatsworth House, Derbyshire.
Baker went on to study fashion design and fine art at Manchester Regional College of Art. She worked assiduously for many years, developing and refining her technique. Her interest in fashion spurred a deep interest in the human form, which she explored through exquisite life drawing and nudes rendered in charcoal, chalk and pastel. She developed an eye for refined materials including rare silk prints and fabrics that she sought out and preserved meticulously for her designs and archives. Baker’s rare sensibility for color is evidenced especially in her portraits, by her use of colored papers, idiosyncratic composition, and a focus on the patterns and textures of fabric worn by her subjects, the line of the bodies and their skin colors and hair texture.
In 1953, Baker married David Winter, owner of Winter’s The Jewellers, then housed in the landmark 1880s building on Little Underbank, Stockport, Manchester. In 1964 her first daughter Lyn was born. In 1971 she married Dennis Btesh, an avid photographer, and in 1974 her second daughter Alexandra was born.
During the next 14 years she lived in Cheshire in the north of England, traveling to second homes in North Wales and the South of France. During this period, she continued to hone her practice in her studio, on her travels, and at frequent life drawing classes in Manchester amassing a significant volume of works on paper including abstract landscapes of England, Scotland, Wales and France, still life works on paper, portraits and life drawings in watercolor, charcoal, graphite and pastel.
Baker was also a qualified swimming teacher, who taught her own children, children with disabilities, and friends and families privately and at local swimming baths.
When her daughters left home for boarding school and university, a twenty-year period of exhibitions began with her first solo exhibition at Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester in 1986.
John Robert-Blunn, Art Critic, Manchester Evening News commented, “For her first one- man exhibition, Cheshire based artist Barbara Baker, has gathered a powerful collection in a wide range of media at the Tib Lane Gallery. By far the most impressive pictures are the portraits, which have strength whatever the medium or tint of heavy paper. They have strength of character so that one feels that one actually knows the models. Barbara Baker’s bigger pictures are even better and there are two fine nudes which are not only good life studies, they seem full of vitality.”
Of her exhibition at The Hurlingham Gallery, Watercolours and Drawings Magazine commented, ”Many fine drawings of the female nude and portrait paintings by the Cheshire based artist Barbara Baker are on show at the Hurlingham Gallery in the Kings Road. Finely coloured and strongly executed pastel portraits”.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
Solo exhibitions:
1986 - Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester
September 1987 – The R & A Gallery, Alderley Edge
October 1987 – The Hurlingham Gallery, London
April 1989 – Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester
November 1989 – The Riverside Gallery, London
September 1992 – Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester
April 1993 – Flower paintings, The National Westminster Bank in the Banking Hall, City Office, King Street, Manchester
In December 2007, aged 75 years, she presented her work in an in-home exhibition in Alderley Edge, Cheshire
Barbara continued her artistic practice from her home studio until her late 70s.
Her work has also been included in several group exhibitions.
Image: Barbara Baker, photo by Dennis Btesh.