Alice Baber was an American painter and active feminist who represented Abstract expressionism. Her oil and watercolor paintings depicted multicolored ovals, circles and other shapes of free form.
Background
Alice Baber was born on August 22, 1928, in Charleston, Illinois, United States. She was a daughter of Adin Baber and Lois Shoot.
To avoid the problems with Baber’s poor health, the family spent the winters in Florida. So, from the age of two, the young girl became accustomed to long trips.
Education
Alice Baber decided to be an artist at the early age. She received her first artistic training at the age of eight when she was taught painting by Paul Turner Sargent at the summer class of Eastern Illinois State Teachers College (currently Eastern Illinois University).
In 1946, she entered Lindenwood College for Women in Missouri (currently Lindenwood University). After two years of studies at the institution, the young woman moved to Indiana University Bloomington where she was taught by Alton Pickens. Baber graduated in 1951 with a Master of Arts degree.
Later, Alice Baber attended briefly the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Alice Baber started her career in the early 1950s when she came to New York City. At first, she earned her living by writing, including the editor’s work at McCall’s magazine. At the beginning of her artistic career, Baber created primarily oil still lifes. By the 1950s, she moved to watercolors and produced her first abstract canvases.
While in the Big Apple, she joined the March Gallery where she had her debut solo exhibition in 1958. The same year, Baber was given a studio at the Yaddo Art Colony. During the next decade, she traveled and exhibited around Europe and often spent time in Paris. Travelling was an important part throughout all her artistic profession.
As an avid feminist, Alice Baber organized many exhibitions of women artists, including 1972 ‘Color Forum’ at the University of Texas and 1975 ‘Color, Light, and Image’ international show in New York City dedicated to the United Nations International Women's Year.
A year later, supported by the United States Information Agency, Baber started her two-year trip to Latin American countries. She visited thirteen countries exhibiting her work and giving lectures on art. At the end of the decade, she became an artist in residence at the Tamarind Institute print workshop.
Baber was also known as an educator. She taught art at the New School in New York City; the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of California in Berkeley.
Alice Baber continued to paint till the end of her days.
Alice Baber, 1928-1982
A short look at the life and work of the late artist, whose oil and watercolor paintings feature abstract arrangements of color.