{{Short description|American abstract expressionist painter (1928 - 1982)}} {{For|the American engraver and artist|Alice Barber Stephens }} {{Infobox artist | name = Alice Baber | image = Portrait of Artist Alice Baber.jpg | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date |1928|8|22}} | birth_place = Charleston, Illinois | death_date = {{death date and age |1982|10|2|1928|8|22}} | death_place = New York City, New York | field = Abstract painting | training = {{plain list | * Lindenwood College for Women, Missouri * Indiana University * École des Beaux-Arts, Paris }} | movement = Abstract expressionism | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = }} '''Alice Baber''' (August 22, 1928 – October 2, 1982) was an American abstract expressionist painter who worked in oil and watercolor. She was educated in the United States and in the 1950s and 1960s she studied and lived in Paris. She also traveled around the world.{{r|State}} Baber, a feminist,{{r|Heller}} organized exhibits of women artists' work.{{r|State}}
==Early life== Baber was born in Charleston, Illinois. She grew up in Kansas, Illinois and Miami, Florida.{{r|Oral history}} Her family traveled south to Florida in the winters at a doctor's suggestion because of Alice's poor health, starting around the age of two.{{r|Oral history}} She was interested in becoming an artist from an early age. Baber remembers that around age five she decided she would either be a "poet or painter."{{r|Oral history}} At age eight, she was formally studying drawing and by age twelve became "so advanced she was enrolled in a college-level class."{{r|Heller}}
When World War II, broke out, the yearly trips Florida ended; around that time, Baber was in her early teens.{{r|Oral history}} Baber remembers traveling to Florida and staying in a tent: "that had a certain kind of romance. And later I always felt a bit like a nomad".{{r|Oral history}}
== Education == Baber chose to study art when she attended Lindenwood College for Women in Missouri, where she spent two years before transferring to Indiana University.{{r|State}}{{r|Heller}} At Indiana University, she studied under the figurative expressionist, Alton Pickens.{{r|Heller}} She received her Master of Arts in 1951 and then began to travel through Europe.{{r|Heller}} She studied briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts and lived in Paris in the late 1950s and 1960s.{{r|State}} During her travels in Europe, she made a living through her writing and was the art editor of ''McCall's.''{{r|Heller}}
== Work ==
Baber began her career working primarily in oils, but began experimenting with watercolor paints in the 1950s.{{r|Lallier}} Her experimentation with watercolor initiated a shift in style for Baber as she went from painting still lifes to creating more abstracted works.{{r|Lallier}} Her abstract works focus on color and form with shapes such as the circle being a common motif. Baber was well known for her use of light and color holding several exhibitions devoted to these themes.{{r|Art Intl}}
In 1958, Baber had her first solo show in New York at March Gallery where she was a member.{{r|Heller}} In that same year, she was also granted a studio residency at the Yaddo Art Colony.{{r|Moore}} During this time, she began to develop her unique explorations of color that derive from the "infinite range of possibilities" for exploring color and light within the form of the circle.{{r|Heller}} She told Brian Jones that she was looking for a "way to get the light moving across the whole thing" in ''Battle of the Oranges''.{{r|Moore}} This creative inspiration became fundamental to her artistic approach.
In 1959, she showed paintings throughout Europe, including the first "Jeune Biennale" of the American Cultural Center in Paris, France.{{r|Heller}} Her early life as a "nomad" may have influenced her somewhat: she began to divide her years by living in France for six months every year for a period of time.{{r|Heller}}
In 1975, Baber curated the exhibition "Color, Light and Image". An international exhibition of 125 women artists in celebration of the United Nations' International Women's Year. The show was held at the Women's Interart Center in New York City.<ref name="Color, Light and Image">{{cite book|last1=Dodge|first1=Norton T.|title=Alice Baber: Color, Light and Image|date=1977|publisher=Cremona Foundation|location=Mechanicsville, Maryland}}</ref>
From 1976 to 1978, Baber traveled to 13 Latin American countries with the U.S. State Department, exhibiting her work and lecturing on art.{{r|NYT}} In 1979, Baber was an artist-in-residence at the Tamarind Institute print workshop.{{r|Moore 1995}}
The Alice Baber Memorial Art Library in East Hampton, New York and the Baber Midwest Modern Art Collection of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Art in Indiana are both named in her honor.{{r|State}} Numerous museums around the world{{r|State}} and major galleries in the United States own her works, including the Guggenheim,<ref name="nytimes">{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/07/obituaries/alice-baber-54-artist-of-lyrical-abstractions.html | title=Alice Baber, 54, Artist Of Lyrical Abstractions | work=The New York Times | date=October 7, 1982}}</ref> Whitney,<ref name="nytimes"/> Metropolitan,{{r|Met}} the Museum of Modern Art{{r|MOMA}}, and the Georgia Museum of Art.<ref>https://georgiamuseum.org/ Georgia Museum of Art</ref> She is also widely collected by private, corporate and university collections.{{r|Heller}} Her art reflects, but defies "various stylistic trends" and is "imbued with undulating, sensuous movement, and...pure, translucent colors."{{r|Heller}}
==Personal life== She traveled to Japan and collected a large amount of Asian art in 1960s. Even though in her later life, she experienced great "pain and debilitation" from cancer, she continued to paint.{{r|Heller}} Baber died of cancer in 1982.{{r|NYT}} She was interred in Fairview Cemetery in Edgar County, Illinois.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Baber, Alice -|url=https://judyferraragallery.com/alice-baber/|access-date=2022-01-16|language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist |30em |refs=
<ref name="Art Intl">{{cite journal | title=Alice Baber: Light as Subject | author=A. McCoy | journal=Art International | location=Switzerland | volume=24.1-2 | date=September–October 1980 | pages=135–140 }}</ref>
<ref name="Heller">{{Cite book|title = North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary|last1 = Heller|first1 = Jules|publisher = Garland|year = 1995|isbn = 0824060490|location = New York|pages = [https://archive.org/details/northamericanwom00hellrich/page/43 43–44]|last2 = Heller|first2 = Nancy|url = https://archive.org/details/northamericanwom00hellrich/page/43|via = EBSCOHost|url-access = registration}}</ref>
<ref name="Lallier">{{ cite journal | title=The Watercolors of Alice Baber | journal=Alexandra de Lallier Woman's Art Journal | volume=3 | number=1 |date=Spring–Summer 1982 | pages=44–46 | doi=10.2307/1357930| jstor=1357930 | last1=De Lallier | first1=Alexandra }}</ref>
<ref name="Met">{{cite web | url=http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/482097 | title=The Path of the Grey Falcon of the Dawn, Alice Baber | work=Collection online | publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art | location=New York, New York | accessdate=February 25, 2015 }}</ref>
<ref name="MOMA">{{cite web | url=http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=76425 | title=Sun Circuit| work=The Collection | publisher=Museum of Modern Art | location=New York, New York | accessdate=February 25, 2015 }}</ref>
<ref name="Moore">{{ cite journal | title=Alice Baber | author=Sylvia Moore |journal=Woman's Art Journal |volume=3 | number=1 | date=Spring–Summer 1982 | pages=40–44 |jstor=1357929 |doi=10.2307/1357929}}</ref>
<ref name="Moore 1995">{{cite book | author=Sylvia Moore | chapter=Baber, Alice | title=North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary | year=1995 }}</ref>
<ref name="NYT">{{cite web|title=Alice Baber, 54, Artist Of Lyrical Abstractions|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/07/obituaries/alice-baber-54-artist-of-lyrical-abstractions.html|work=New York Times|date=October 7, 1982 | accessdate=January 7, 2014}}</ref>
<ref name="Oral history">{{cite web|last=Cummings|first=Paul|title=Oral history interview with Alice Baber|url=http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-alice-baber-12443|publisher=Smithsonian Archives of American Art|accessdate=21 March 2014}}</ref>
<ref name="State">{{cite web|title=Alice Baber|url=https://art.state.gov/personnel/alice_baber/|work=Art in Embassies|publisher=U.S. Department of State|accessdate=July 25, 2022}}</ref>
}}
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== External links == * [http://www.wikiart.org/en/alice-baber Alice Baber on Wikiart] * [http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=265 Museum of Modern Art: Alice Baber]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baber, Alice}} Category:1928 births Category:1982 deaths Category:Artists from New York (state) Category:Lindenwood University alumni Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni Category:Abstract expressionist artists Category:20th-century American painters Category:20th-century American women painters Category:People from Charleston, Illinois