William Jacob Baer (January 29, 1860 – September 21, 1941) was an American artist, considered the foremost American miniature painter.

Biography

thumb|Portrait of a Woman in Black (1911), [[Brooklyn Museum]]

William Jacob Baer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on January 29, 1860. He was a lithographer's apprentice at Donaldson and Company in Cincinnati from 1876 to 1879. During the same period he attended an evening modeling class at the McMicken School of Design, taught by Louis Rebisso. He continued his training in Munich at the Royal Academy from 1880 to 1884, studying oil painting with Ludwig Löfftz. He received medals in all his courses, and the Academy purchased one of his watercolors. In 1913, Baer was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member.

Upon his return to the United States, Baer settled into the Montclair, New Jersey art colony to continue his career as a genre painter, portrait painter, and teacher. He was attracted there by his friend, Alexander Drake (the art editor Scribner’s Monthly). Drake encouraged him to teach a class in engraving and black-and-white draftsmanship for illustrators; class members were dubbed the "Carbonari". In New York and at the Paris Exposition of 1900, Baer was awarded a 1st class medals. He also was a regular exhibitor at the National Academy of Design, N.Y., the Chicago Art Institute and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Among his miniatures are The Golden Hour, Daphne, In Arcadia, and Madonna with the Auburn Hair.

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File:Alfred Corning Clark.jpg|Alfred Corning Clark (1893 and 1911), Oil on canvas, 22 1/16 x 18 in. (56 x 45.7 cm) Clark Art Institute

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Notes

References

  • American Federation of Arts, American Art Directory, Volume 3, Editor Florence Nightingale Levy, R.R. Bowker., 1900.
  • Carr, Carolyn Kinder, Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair, National Portrait Gallery, 1993.
  • Dearinger, David Bernard, National Academy of Design (U.S.), Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design: 1826-1925, Hudson Hills, 2004.
  • Michigan State Library, Biographical Sketches of American Artists, "Baer, William J.", p. 21&ndash;22. Michigan State library, 1912.
  • William Jacob Baer writing about painting ivory from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art