Work by late Washington County artist on display at Citizens Library
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
Nanette Battista gestures to a work by her father, the late Hickory artist John L. Baker, which is on display at Citizens Library in Washington through November.
A work by the late John L. Baker of Hickory
A work by the late John L. Baker of Hickory
A work by the late John L. Baker of Hickory
A work by the late John L. Baker of Hickory
John L. Baker didn’t hunger for the spotlight.
The late Hickory resident was content with the satisfaction that he received from his work as an artist, and the respectable livelihood that it brought. He was also devoutly religious and loved the Appaloosa horses that populated his farm. Baker pursued these passions doggedly until 2001, when he sustained a head injury in a riding accident. He died four years later at age 78, leaving behind hundreds of canvases, both finished and unfinished, along with murals and screens.
“He always had a painting that he was working on,” according to his daughter, Nanette Battista. “Two, three or four at a time.”
In the years since Baker was laid to rest in the family cemetery he established outside McDonald, his family has labored to keep his work alive. They’ve established a website, Facebook page and gallery dedicated to his work at Valentour’s Family Restaurant & Pub in McDonald. Nineteen prints of his art are on display at Citizens Library in Washington through the end of November.
Undeniably prolific, Baker’s family has cataloged more than 500 paintings that are in the area or in the family’s possession. The exhibit at Citizens Library includes a rendering of Christ’s Last Supper that, unlike other paintings that depict the scene, has Christ’s disciples seated around a table. Baker’s interest in animals found expression through paintings of deer, ducks, dogs and, of course, horses. He also painted landscapes, portraits, nudes and scenes of Europe.
“He sat at the kitchen table and that’s where painted all the time,” Battista said.
Baker told the Observer-Reporter in 1995 that he painted “any idea that comes to mind, working from memory. Everywhere one looks there is something to paint.”
Born in McKees Rocks in 1927, the seventh of nine children, his family operated a bakery in Pittsburgh’s West End. Baker’s father was, at one point, the mayor of McKees Rocks, and one of his two younger sisters, Catherine Baker Knoll, served as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor from 2003 to 2008.
Battista said her father’s artistic inclinations surfaced early.
“When his sisters would teach him how to write his name, he would see a rabbit in the garden and start sketching it,” she said.
He was eventually enrolled at St. Joseph’s School of Practical and Fine Arts in East Liberty. After leaving the armed forces in the wake of World War II, he embarked on a career as a freelance artist. His worked ended up in the Duquesne Chapel, Pittsburgh’s Sacred Heart Church and Ascension Church in Ingram.
Baker’s wife, Nancy, who died in 2015, explained to an interviewer for Suburban Living magazine in 2007 that “John’s art is so unique. He refused to copy anything and studied art extensively when he was very young. He studied the anatomy of horses and he knew every muscle and every bone. He also created religious art. Sometimes, he would just take a piece of wood and turn it into something that only he could see, until it was done.”
In the years since the deaths of Baker and his wife, his heirs have been looking to gather all his paintings. Some turned up unfinished, apparently abandoned by Baker when his attentions turned elsewhere, and some turned up in unlikely places, such as Baker’s barn.
“We found some that we had never seen before,” Battista said.
Through the exhibits of Baker’s work and sales of prints of his paintings, his family hopes his memory will endure beyond his family and surviving friends.
“He loved people,” Battista said. “He was interested in learning all the time. Fame didn’t mean anything to him. It wasn’t about money or fame.”