ARTIST: Walter Emerson Baum (Pennsylvania, 1884 - 1956)
NAME: Landscape - Folding Hills (titled on verso)
MEDIUM: oil on board
CONDITION: Very good. No visible inpaint under UV light.
SIGHT SIZE: 16 x 20 inches / 40 x 50 cm
FRAME SIZE: 19 x 24 inches / 48 x 60 cm
SIGNATURE: lower right and on verso
NOTE: has artist's leaflet on verso
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 117568
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BIOGRAPHY:
Walter Emerson Baum, the second of five children, was born in Sellersville, Pennsylvania on 14 December 1884. Although he grew up in a musical family, he studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and later received an honorary degree from Lehigh University.Baum was a prolific artist who exhibited in over one-hundred fifty museum exhibitions and received over thirty major awards. Baum gained nationwide recognition when he won the prestigious Sesnan Gold Medal in 1925 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art Annual. He went on to win the Zabriskie Prize in 1945 from the American Watercolor Society and the Medal of Honor in 1953 from the National Arts Club.Baum, whom many consider the "father of art in the Lehigh Valley," became an important promoter of art in the area. He wrote extensively on the subject for the Sellersville Herald, the Doylestown Intelligence and the Allentown Evening Chronicle. He also lent his expertise and criticism to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and the Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin serving as art editor and critic for both as well as for the publication, Two Hundred Years, a study of the Pennsylvania Germans and their heritage.His dedication to the prolongation and preservation of art culminated with his founding of the Lehigh Art Alliance and co-founding the Allentown Art Museum. Between 1918 and 1926, Baum taught art classes at his home in Sellersville. After a student suggested that he offer summer art classes in Allentown, Baum founded his own school of art in 1929.Besides directing the Baum School of Art, Baum worked as the first director of the Allentown Art Museum and amassed a major regional art collection of the period. In June of 1956, Baum retired as director of the Baum School and the Allentown Art Museum. Later that month he wrote his last column for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Soon after, on 12 July 1956, he died of a heart attack.