Self-Portrait with a Paint Palette

This self-portrait depicts the artist as she works, clutching a paint palette and glancing over her shoulder as if studying the subject she is painting, just to the right of the viewer. The background is dark, but a pot, glass vase and two candlesticks can be discerned - the light reflects from the latter artefacts, but the attention remains firmly on the central figure of Baker herself. Her expression is contemplative, and her face realistic and fleshy, with the shadow under her chin rendered exquisitely. The broad brushstrokes utilised for her robe create a silky effect, elevating Baker to the status of a classical subject.

Gladys Marguerite Baker
Baker was born in 1889 in London, one of nine children to a warehouse worker and a clothing manufacturer. She studied at Queen’s College and then the St John’s Wood Art School, before being accepted to the Royal Academy Schools.

At the Royal Academy Schools, Baker won a Graphic Prize and a Silver Medal for Composition in Colour. She soon specialised in portraiture, in oils, and in watercolours. She regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1916 and 1947, as well as at the Society of Women Artists - the latter of which she was elected a member in 1931. Aside from these regular exhibitions, Baker also displayed works with the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and in a diverse range of cities that included Liverpool, New York and Stockholm.