ROBERT RIDDLE Baker
"I'm of the opinion that anyone can paint, can create. What many can't do is devote the time it takes to accomplish that creative effort.”
BIOGRAPHY
Robert Riddle Baker was born in Ohio in 1944 and is the youngest of eight offspring. He has been painting off and on from childhood. Nearing retirement in 2019, he began to paint every day as time had finally allowed him to reconnect to what he deeply loves. Mostly self-taught, he had the pleasure of studying with Robert Fabe, a well-known Cincinnati, Ohio area artist, when he took night courses at UC with Mr. Fabe as his instructor. His works are mostly imaginative and not based on any actual place but on memories of times gone by. His paintings can be found in notable US collections as he actively paints and creates in his crowded studio in Huntsville, Alabama as well as his second studio and home near Cincinnati, Ohio. Contact him at bobbaker1962@gmail.com.
ARTIST INSIGHTS
How are your background and life experiences connected to your art?
My "art" may have begun as a child bored with the preacher's sermon. To distract and calm me, my mother would give me her paycheck envelope and a pencil and I would draw.
Who are some of your biggest artistic influences?
My high school art teachers, and later my professor at the University of Cincinnati, Mr. Fabe.
How have you developed your artist career?
It started with high school and partly college, then decorating the mess hall in the Army. Owning an art gallery in Cocoa Beach, Florida in the late 1960’s and doing outdoor art shows, leading to a year of intensive watercolor painting in the early 1980s. After a long break, I got back at it in 2019 and was painting almost daily through observation and study, with other artists helping me refine.
What does your artistic work intend to communicate to its audience?
Memories before the world began to hold a cell phone and a mouse in each hand. Memories of nature, the land, the ocean - and a few attemps at abstraction
Does your work comment on any current social or political issues?
Not usually, but the Ukraine-Russia war caused me to paint a few “abstracts”, and then the ICE murders in Minneapolis caused another few.
Do you have a particular story that stands out from your career as an artist?
I witnessed a few of the Florida Highwaymen selling their paintings on the street in 1969 and I didn’t have enough sense (or money) to grab up a few of them!
What is one thing you would like your audience to know about you?
That painting, the act of putting the brush to the surface of paper or canvas, to apply that pigment, that color, to a blank surface is the most mentally rewarding experience I can have on a daily basis.
Why have you chosen to sell your work in the 1515 Lincoln Gallery?
To be accepted by this prestigious gallery: it’s like winning first place at the county fair.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I'm of the opinion that anyone can paint, can create. What many can't do is devote the time it takes to accomplish that creative effort.
Light Wind by Robert Riddle Baker
“To distract and calm me, my mother would give me her
paycheck envelope and a pencil and I would draw.”
Robert Riddle Baker’S AVAILABLE ART
“Painting, the act of putting the brush to the surface of paper or canvas, to apply that pigment, that color, to a blank surface is the most mentally rewarding experience I can have on a daily basis.”
