RICHARD BAKER
Tulips I, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips IV, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5
Tulips IX, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips VI, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips VII, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips XII, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips XV, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips XVI, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips XVII, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips XVIII, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 35.5 x 26.5 in.
Tulips XXI, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 30 x 22 in.
Tulips VII, 2000. Lithograph and monotype. 30 x 22 in.
In this series of thirty-six monoprints, made over a series of days at Jungle Press Editions, Richard Baker explores his signature motif of the tulip with nuanced variations of color and texture. At the start of the project, Baker drew on a lithographic stone, from which we printed several impressions in black. Baker then carved a woodcut block, which was then printed on several more sheets of cream-colored paper. By layering these impressions with hand painted monotype, the artist was able to evoke an ever-changing light throughout the series. In “Tulips I” warm-colored flowers float above a dark blue sky and ocean, giving a sense of windy weather. For “Tulips VII”, the artist chooses a bright sunny color with an over-all warm glow. An “evening” light characterizes “Tulips XVIII” and “Tulips XXI.”
With each print, Baker conjures the unique combination of drawing, printing, and painting that characterizes the monoprint process. The resulting group is like a diary of days to meditate upon, and to imagine revisiting a changing landscape.
B. 1959, BALTIMORE, MD.
Richard Baker explores the realm of the everyday object by presenting it in a renewed context. The still life is refreshed through an altered point of view, pitching the objects upward in space toward an iconic frontality. He has used the motif of the tulip repeatedly to conjure a living emblem of birth, life, and decay.
His work has been shown at the Joan T. Washburn Gallery, New York, NY; Albert Merola Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; and Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA. He has also exhibited in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Cologne among other cities. He is currently represented by Tibor de Nagy Gallery in NY for over 10 years.
Baker's work is in the permanent collections of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Newark Museum, NJ; and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA. His awards include a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and The New York Foundation for the Arts. He has been a visiting artist at The University of Iowa, Boston University, The Rhode Island School of Design, The School of Visual Art in New York, the Vermont Studio Center, and others. He has long standing involvements with The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro, MA where he conducts workshops. Baker taught for eleven years at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. After 25 years in NY, he now resides in Cambridge, MA.