Wheel of the Jaguar - Baber, Alice

Fine Art

Baber, Alice

Alice Baber was born in 1928 in Charleston, Illinois. She was formally educated in drawing by age eight and took college-level drawing courses by age twelve. Baber graduated from Indiana University, where she studied art under mentor and figurative expressionist Alton Pickens. She then earned her Masters of Arts and traveled to Europe, studying at the elite Parisian École des Beaux-Arts. She initially worked primarily with oils, but then incorporated watercolors and abstract work. Her work usually features various colors and forms, with circles as a prominent shape.

Baber’s first solo exhibition was in New York at March Gallery in 1958, the same year that she was granted a studio residency at the Yadoo Art Colony. Other paintings were shown in the American Cultural Center in Paris, the United Nations’ International Women’s Year exhibition, and various Latin American countries through the U.S. State Department. She later became artist-in-residence at the Tamarind Institute. The Baber Midwest Modern Art Collection of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Art in Indiana and the Alice Baber Memorial Art Library in East Hampton, New York are both named in her honor.

In June 1982, Baber was the subject of two articles in the Woman’s Art Journal. Alexandra de Lallier observed that Baber’s explorations in oil and watercolor “began to relate and converge,” and her method of “sinking” and “lifting” in oil came from her discoveries in watercolor’s softness and resonances of light. This piece shows an off-white background with various shades of blue watercolors mixed with yellow, red, and pink. The use of a bold palette closely follows Baber’s classic style.