William George BAKER  (1864-1929):

Born in Wellington, the son of George Baker and Emma Stockbridge and grandson of George Baker and Susan Gooder, who arrived in Wellington on the Lady Nugent in 1841.

As an itinerant artist (Baker was an upholsterer before he began painting), he travelled extensively around the country painting and selling his works as he went. Baker mostly produced landscapes, and worked in both oil and watercolour. Many of his works picture scenes that were popular with artists and art audiences, including the Pink and White Terraces and the southern lakes and fiords.

In 1889 Baker married Ellen King, the daughter of a prominent Greytown landowner, and the couple moved into their first home in Greytown in the Wairarapa. Together, they travelled around New Zealand, scoping scenes that would become the subjects of Baker’s oil paintings.

He exhibited with NZ Academy of Fine Arts, 1894-1907, the NZ Industrial Exhibition, 1885 and the St Louis Exposition, USA, 1904.

In 1899 he became a professional painter. He and his wife had moved back to Wellington in 1893, and then to Tītahi Bay in 1919, where Baker remained for the rest of his life. Many of his works detail landscapes close to his homes in Tītahi Bay and the Wairarapa. He died in Wellington.

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