Frances Baker
{{Short description|British painter (1873–1944)}}
{{about|the British painter|the American mathematician|Frances Ellen Baker}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Frances Baker
| image =
| imagesize =
| caption =
| birth_name = Frances Davies-Colley
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1873|05|3}}
| birth_place = London, United Kingdom
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1944|11|14|1873|05|3}}{{cite web |title=England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1957 |url=https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar#calendar |website=Gov.uk |accessdate=28 August 2020}}
| death_place = Cambridge, United Kingdom
| education = Slade School of Fine Art
| field = Genre and Portrait Painting
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Cecil Cautley Baker|1897|1903|end=his death}}
- {{marriage|Francis Kennedy Cahill|1915|1930|end=his death}}
}}
| training =
}}
Frances Baker (3 May 1873 – 14 November 1944), also known professionally as Frances Cahill, was a British painter who was active in Ireland in the early years of the 20th century.
Biography
Frances Davies-Colley was born into a prominent family of medical professionals: her father, John Neville Davies-Colley, was chief surgeon at Guy's Hospital, London, her brothers, Robert Davies-Colley and Hugh Davies-Colley, also became surgeons at Guy's, and her sister, Eleanor Davies-Colley, was the founder of the South London Hospital for Women and Children and the first woman elected to the Royal College of Surgeons.
Frances, the eldest child, studied at the Slade School of Art, taking a certificate in figure drawing in the 1894-95 session.{{cite book|last1=University College, London|title=Calendar|date=1895|page=(l)}} She married Cecil Cautley Baker in 1897;{{Cite book| pages = 81| title = London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1931| chapter = January 1st, 1897, Cecil Cautley Baker and Frances Davies-Colley}} a surveyor by profession, he had taken first prize honors at the Royal Agricultural College in 1877{{Cite book| title = The Farmer's Magazine| date = 1877}} and passed the professional examination of the Institution of Surveyors in 1885.{{Cite book| title = The British Architect: A Journal of Architecture and the Accessory Arts| date = 1885}} The couple had two daughters: Lettice Cautley Baker (later Ramsey), born in Guildford, Surrey, England in 1898; and Frances Cautley Baker (later Trench;{{Cite book| publisher = Odhams Press| last1 = Debrett| first1 = John| last2 = Hankinson| first2 = C. F. J.| last3 = Hesilrige| first3 = Arthur G. M.| title = Debrett, John, C. F. J. Hankinson, and Arthur G. M. Hesilrige. Debretts peerage, baronetage, knightage, and companionage ...| location = London| date = 1947}} later Farrell),{{Cite book| pages = 316| title = England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005| chapter = Marriages registered in October, November, December, 1930}} born in Thakeham, Sussex, England in 1902. The family moved to Rosses Point, County Sligo, where Cecil Baker leased oyster farming rights in the Sligo estuary.{{Cite book| last = Commons| first = Great Britain Parliament House of| title = Sessional papers. Inventory control record 1| date = 1903}} He died suddenly in 1903,{{Cite book| pages = 100| title = England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, 1973-1995| chapter = Baker, Cecil Cantley (1903)}} and his widow and young family moved to Ballysadare, where Frances had a farm, worked as a photographer{{Cite book| title = Form A, Census of Ireland, 1911}} and continued painting.
Working both in oil and watercolor, producing portraits and landscapes, Baker exhibited regularly with George William Russell (AE).{{Cite web| last = Burch| first = Stephen| title = Lettice Ramsey - Obituary and feature article| work = Stephen Burch (Steve Burch) Birding Website| accessdate = 31 January 2018| url = http://www.stephenburch.com/lettice/lettice.htm}}{{Cite book| publisher = Yale University Press| isbn = 978-0-300-11712-7| last1 = Kennedy| first1 = S. B.| last2 = Henry| first2 = Paul| title = Paul Henry: With a Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations| date = 2007}} In Dublin, Baker was acquainted with Irish activists and artists including Constance Gore-Booth and her second husband Casimir Dunin Markievicz.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} She exhibited paintings in a joint show at the Leinster Lecture Hall in 1911 with Markievicz, Russell, and Paul and Grace Henry.{{Cite news| title = Pictures at Molesworth Street| work = Freeman's Journal| date = 17 October 1911}}{{Cite news| title = The Five Artists: Pictures as Leinster Hall| work = Irish Times| date = 16 October 1911}} She also showed work in exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.{{Cite web| title = The Hoyle Gallery| accessdate = 17 February 2018| url = http://www.thehoylegallery.com/gallery/?s=frances+baker}}{{Cite book| publisher = Princeton University Press| isbn = 978-1-4008-7418-7| last = Arrington| first = Lauren| title = Revolutionary Lives: Constance and Casimir Markievicz| date = 2015}}
Frances Baker married a second time in 1915 to Dublin physician Francis Kennedy Cahill. Her husband was active in amateur theatrical circles, and they were involved with the United Arts Club in Dublin.{{Cite web| title = In memoriam. Francis Kennedy Cahill (1876-1930)| work = Vdocuments.site| accessdate = 13 February 2018| url = https://vdocuments.site/documents/in-memoriam-57bf078a37fed.html}}
In 1919, she opened a textile weaving workshop called the Crock of Gold in Dublin. The firm became well known as part of the craft revival of handwork and exhibited at the Irish Decorative Art Association exhibitions pre-Partition and the Arts and Crafts Society shows throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s.{{Cite book| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 978-1-351-57082-4|editor= Sandra Alfoldy | last = McBrinn| first = Joseph| title = "Craft, Space and Interior Design, 1855-2005 "| chapter = Craft as union, craft as demarcation: the decoration of Belfast Cathedral| date = 2017}} As with other successful handcrafting businesses at the time, the firm’s traditional handmade textiles sold to modern fashion designers, including French designer Coco Chanel.{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1080/1362704X.2015.1058047| issn = 1362-704X| volume = 19| issue = 4| pages = 477–482| last = McBrinn| first = Joseph| title = Cleo: Irish Clothes in a Wider World| journal = Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture| date = September 2015| s2cid = 164626662}} Baker's daughter Frances and her husband, the writer Michael Farrell, later managed the highly successful business.{{Cite journal| volume = 48| pages = 46–47| last = Lynch| first = Martin| title = Michael Farrell, Carlowman (1899-1962) Writer or "Die, Publish and be damned"| journal = Carloviana| accessdate = 16 February 2018| date = 2000| url = http://carlowhistorical.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Carloviana-No-48-2000.pdf}}{{Cite journal| volume = 6| issue = 3| pages = 8| title = Ireland's Industrial Advance: Crock of Gold| journal = Gaelic Echo| accessdate = 25 February 2018| date = March 1957| url = http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/1957%2003%20vol%206%20no%2003%20.pdf}}{{cite journal|last1=O'Meara|first1=John|title=On the Fringe of Letters|journal=Irish University Review|date=1997|volume=27|issue=2|pages=310–324|jstor=25484738}}
Baker's second husband Dr Francis Kennedy Cahill died suddenly in 1930 in Dublin, while Baker was in England attending the funeral of her son-in-law, the Cambridge mathematician Frank P. Ramsey. Baker lived in France for a time but settled in Cambridge by the late 1930s.{{cite web|title=Results for 1939 Register, 'Frances Cahill 1873 Cambridge'|url=https://search.findmypast.co.uk/results/world-records/1939-register?firstname=frances&firstname_variants=true&lastname=cahill&keywordsplace=cambridge|website=Find My Past}} She died in Cambridge in November 1944.{{Cite book| title = England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007| chapter = Deaths Registered in October, November and December, 1944}}
Paintings
After her second marriage, Baker was known as Mrs Kennedy Cahill and Frances Cahill; she signed her work with the initials “FB” and “FC.”
- Lettice, Newnham College
- Loading the Turf Cart (aka Gathering the Turf) (pastel on tinted paper, 30.5 x 43 cm)
- Driving Cattle (aka Bringing Home the Cows) (pastel on tinted paper, 30.5 x 43 cm)
- Ox Mountain Co Sligo (watercolour and pencil, 24 x 34 cm)
- Peasants Working before a Cottage (watercolour and pencil, 29 x 39.5 cm)
- Self Portrait, 1900 (pencil, heightened with white; waxed crayon, 33 x 23.5 cm)
- Self Portrait, 1917 (pencil, heightened with white; waxed crayon, 28.5 x 21.5 cm)
- Cafe Scenes, Spalato Croatia (pencil, 20.5 x 27 cm)
- A Park in Paris (watercolour, 23 x 30.5 cm)
- Fontaine De L'Observatoire, Paris, 1933 (watercolour and pencil, 23 x 26 cm)
- Irish Cottage Interior with Family Group, 1904 (watercolour and pencil, 18 x 26 cm)
- Irish Landscape (oil on canvas, 49.5 x 60 cm)
- Lettice Reading and Frances Knitting, 1914 (oil on canvas, 62.25 x 53.5 cm)
- Market Day, Co Sligo (watercolour and pen heightened with white, 21.5 x 29 cm)
- Market Stalls on the Left Bank, Paris (watercolour, 23 x 31.75 cm)
- Meadow (watercolour, 25.5 cm x 35.5 cm)
- Morning, Place Montrouge, 1933 (watercolour and pencil heightened with white, 13 x 19 cm)
- Portrait of Cecil Baker (oil on canvas, 59 x 49.5 cm)
- Portrait of Mrs. George Russell (oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm)
- River Scene with Trees on the Far Bank (watercolour and pencil, 20.5 x 39 cm)
- Self Portrait (oil on board, 34 x 23.5 cm)
- Self Portrait (oil on canvas, 75.5 x 63.5 cm)
- Self Portrait, 1895 (oil on canvas, 43 x 32.5 cm)
- Women Digging Potatoes, Co Sligo, 1905 (watercolour and pencil heightened with white, 32.5 x 42 cm)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/lettice-ramsey-nee-baker-228387 Portrait of Lettice Ramsey née Baker], by Frances Baker, Newnham College, University of Cambridge.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, Frances}}
Category:19th-century English painters
Category:19th-century English women artists
Category:20th-century English painters
Category:20th-century English women artists
Category:Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art
Category:English women painters
Category:English portrait painters
Category:Artists from County Sligo