This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Known for watercolor paintings that depict people in their environment and associated with the California Style of regional painting, Olive Barker was born in Chicago, Illinois but grew up in Omaha, Nebraska.
She studied at the Paris branch of the New York School of Fine and Applied Art and at the Oberlin, Ohio Conservatory of Music. Returning to Omaha, she became a pupil of J. Laurie Wallace and met her husband, George Edmund Barker, while taking classes from Wallace.
In 1923, the couple, having married in 1911, moved to Southern California where her husband taught art at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, and she studied with John Francis Smith, Millard Sheets, F. Tolles Chamberlin, and Paul Sample.
She began exhibiting her work at this time, beginning with local landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, but in the mid 1930s, she began some extensive travel into New Mexico, Arizona, and throughout California. Titles from paintings of that period include "Taos Maiden", "San Fernando Mission", and "Tucson".
A successful watercolorist, she won many awards from Southern California art shows. She was a member of the California Watercolor Society, the Santa Monica Art Associations and the Women Painters of the West.
Source:
"An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West" by Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick |
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| | Born in Chicago, IL on Aug. 1, 1885. Olive Carpenter grew up in Omaha, NE and first studied painting there with J. Laurie Wallace. At his studio she met artist George Barker whom she married in 1911. She also studied in Paris, at the New York School of Applied Art, and at Oberlin Conservatory. After moving to southern California in 1923, she studied with Chamberlin, Sheets, and Sample. She was a resident of Santa Monica, Corona Del Mar, and Pacific Palisades where she died on Sept. 22, 1961. Her works earned many prizes in southern California shows of the 1930s. Exh: Santa Monica AA, 1931; Calif. Art Club, 1931-38; American Painters & Sculptors, LACMA, 1931; Calif. WC Society, 1931-40; Long Beach AA, 1932; City Hall (Sierra Madre), 1932; Asssistance League (LA), 1935; Webb Gallery (LA), 1936; GGIE, 1939; Los Angele Co. Fairs; Laguna Beach AA, 1939; Women Painters of the West, 1949; Joslyn Museum (Omaha), 1964 (memorial). In: Joslyn Memorial Museum. | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Southern California Artists (Nancy Moure); Women Artists of the American West; American Art Annual 1933; Who's Who in American Art 1936-62; Who's Who in California 1942; Who's Who on the Pacific Coast 1951; Artists of the American West (Samuels); Death record. | | 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. |
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Olive Barker is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
The California Art Club
Taos Pre 1940
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