Born in Deckard, Tennessee, Ralph Baker became an illustrator whose watercolors were used in magazines and pictorial labels. He also did fine art oil and watercolor painting of landscapes, mining camps, city scenes and especially loved the gold mining country and the High Sierras.

He moved to Red Bluff, California in 1921, and shortly after that, settled in San Francisco where he was a student of Maurice Logan and attended the Brino School of Lithography. For 45 years, he worked as a commercial artist for the Stecher-Traung-Schmidt Lithograph Company in San Francisco, and retired to Sonora where he did some art teaching.

Memberships included the Society of Western Artists, and the San Leandro Art Association.

Source:
Gordon McClelland and Jay Last, "California Watercolors 1850-1970"
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"

Ralph Baker (1908-1976) Born: Deckard, TN; Studied: Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (San Francisco), California College of Arts and Crafts (Oakland); Member: Society of Western Artists.

Ralph Baker came to California as a young man and after studying art in the Bay Area, became a commercial illustrator. His watercolor illustrations were reproduced as magazine illustrations and pictorial label designs. From the 1930s until the 1970s, he also painted fine-art watercolors depicting landscape, cityscape and mining camp scenes. Baker taught art in the Sonora area.

Biographical information:
Interview with Ralph Baker, 1975.
California Orange Box Labels: An Illustrated History.

Biography courtesy of California Watercolors 1850-1970,
©2003 Hillcrest Press, Inc.