Watercolour and pencil on paper

Why we acquired this work

Surprisingly this is the first watercolour by Thomas Baker we have shown in this series. The gallery collected 'Warwickshire Watercolours' for a number of years, and he was and is a firm favourite.

This work also has the title ' Up The Leam, Near Oldham's Ford'.

The Artist

The artist was a pupil of C.V. Barber, a Birmingham landscape painter. After his training he moved to Leamington; the gallery there has a large collection of his work, generally larger oils.

The date of death of the artist, generally given in dictionaries as 10th August 1869 is wrong. Leamington Art Gallery has discovered his obituary in the newspaper for 1864.

The Place of Thomas Baker in Art

Thomas Baker was mainly a landscape painter working in oil and watercolour. He exhibited in Birmingham and at the Royal Academy in London. He lived in Leamington between 1854 and 1862 and many of his landscapes show the local area.

Other works by the artist in the Herbert's collections

See the two little gem-like oil paintings by Baker in the Old Masters Gallery at the Herbert! A list of Baker's work at the Herbert, along with the whole art collections, is accessible from the red 'Collections' link on this website.