Alice Baber was an American Abstract Expressionist painter who worked in both oil and watercolor paints. She began painting at the age of eight, ultimately studying art at Lindenwood College for Women in St. Charles, Missouri until she transferred to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She later traveled around the world, studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau, France, and lived in Paris throughout the late 1950s and 19060s. She was a member of the March Gallery on Tenth Street in New York City, worked as an art editor of McCall’s magazine, and showed her paintings throughout Europe.
Considered a Feminist, Baber was instrumental in organizing exhibitions of women artists at a time when women were still struggling to gain prominence in the international art world. From 1976 to 1978, Baber traveled to 13 Latin American countries with the U.S. State Department, exhibiting her work and lecturing on art. In 1979, Baber was an artist-in-residence at the Tamarind Institute print workshop. Her legacy is honored at the Baber Midwest Modern Art Collection of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Art in Indiana and the Alice Baber Memorial Art Library in East Hampton, Long Island, New York. Her work is in major museum collections around the world.
Baber’s work is recognized for its luminous, abstract shapes, particularly in stained canvases filled with transparent, radiant color. Her lyrical compositions often consist of overlapping floating round or ovoid shapes.
