Natalie B. Baker
 Painter
Natalie Bachrach. Born May 10, 1913. Became an expert portraitist and landscape painter based in New York City after attending Camp Lenore and receiving honors at Radcliffe College. Married Samm Sinclair Baker. Studied with Kuniyoshi, Raphael Soyer, George Grosz and became lifetime member of the Art Students League of NY. Friends with Reginald Marsh. Showed on East Coast. Wrote art history radio shows for NBC. One of founders of Mamaroneck Artists Guild. In 1950s studied abstraction with Victor Candell and Hans Hofmann. Gave private painting classes to many generations of high school students and women. Author with husband of Abrams published Introduction to Art and de facto collaborator on many other titles. Died May 16, 1998.

       

Natalie's paintings are represented by the
Laurel Tracy Gallery

       



From left to right (reverse chronological order):
  • Portrait from late 1960s.
  • Portrait of daughter, 1958.
  • Exercise in Soyer class, 1930s or '40s.
    •
    Early in her career Natalie won accolades, for instance a prize for the portrait "Young Ruth", but later when she painted nudes she was prohibited from showing them in suburban galleries and her shift to abstraction was not appreciated.

    drawing by Hofmann on NBB  abstraction of dancers
    From left to right:
    Charoal drawing begun by Natalie but extensively "corrected" by Hans Hofmann at his studio in the summer of 1958. There are three others like this and a fourth more didactic one. Dancers, 1970s. This piece is far more abstract than nudes painted in the early or mid 1960s. By 1970 her work was far more abstract, but rarely, if ever, was her work completely non-representational.

    NBB with painting in early 1960s
    Early 1960s.

    Natalie traveled to east Africa in the mid-1960s and again in the early 1970s. There she shot many photographs while on safari or downtown Nairobi and brought back masks to, in the modernist tradition, adorn the walls of her house.

    More paintings!
     
    Photographs that her grandson uses as resources.
     
    Many of Natalie's students continue to be successful fine or commercial artists. One of the students Natalie kept in touch with until her death was Sarah McEneaney. More of her work can also be found here.
    1934 at 340 CPW
    Want to find out more or see the art in the flesh? Contact us here.
    (c) copyright 1998, 1999, 2004 all rights reserved,
    no material may be copied or otherwise used, appropriated,
    etc. without written permission from Estate of Natalie B. Baker.
    Page by Michael Cammer