This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Born in East Medway, Massachusetts, George Holbrook Baker became known for his sketch-art abilities and lithography.
His grandfather was the first bell caster in America. At age seventeen, Baker apprenticed to a commercial artist in New York City and then became a prize-winning student at the National Academy of Design during the Gold Rush Days. In 1849, picking up on this excitement, he and several others traveled to Mexico to do gold mining and then went to San Francisco where his lithograph "Port Of San Francisco 1849" appeared in the "New York Times" that same year.
He ran Baker's Express, which brought mail to the gold miners, and he sketched as he traveled. In Sacramento, he went into the mercantile business and continued sketching and doing woodcut views of California. In 1862, a great flood in the Sacramento area caused him to return to San Francisco, where he worked until he died. In 1873 in Yosemite, he sketched scenes that became part of a Pacific Coast set of lithographs.
Source:
Peggy and Harold Samuels, "Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West" |
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| | Born in Medway, MA on March 9, 1827. When quite young Baker was apprenticed to an artist in NYC and was a student at the NAD at the time of the California Gold Rush. After joining a group going to California, he arrived in San Francisco in 1849. His drawing Port of San Francisco, 1849 was lithographed and published in the New York Tribune that same year. A failure at mining, he soon went into the mercantile business in Sacramento and continued sketching until the great flood in 1862. He then moved his home and lithography business to San Francisco where he continued to work until his death on Jan. 20, 1906 as a result of a cable car accident. Three months later most of his work went up in flames. Exh: Calif. State Fair, 1858, 1859; Mechanics' Inst. (SF), 1865, 1874; SFAA, 1873. In: CHS; Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley); Society of Calif. Pioneers; Oakland Museum; De Young Museum. | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
California Pictorial (Van Nostrand & Coulter); New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America (Groce, George C. and David H. Wallace); Artists of the American West (Doris Dawdy); California on Stone (Peters); Artists of the American West (Samuels); First 100 Years of Painting in California (J. Van Nostrand); SF Chronicle, 1-21-1906 (obituary). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|