Born of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction on December 14, 1884, Walter Baum painted among the villages and cities of these people. A pupil of W. T. Trego and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he was a member of many organizations, including the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the Germantown Art League, the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Watercolor Club, Associate of the National Academy of Design in New York, the Salmagundi Club, the Woodmere Art League, and many others.
Baum was the art editor of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, editor of the Sellersville Herald, a contributing artist of the Curtis Publishing Company, an illustrator for Story Classics, director of the Allentown Museum and head of Kline-Baum Art School in Allentown, PA. He was also a member of the New Hope Art Associates.
The artist was a recipient of many awards, including the bronze medal from the American Artists’ Exhibition in Philadelphia; the Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy; the Zabriskie Prize from the American Watercolor Society; and the Purchase Prize from the Buck Hill Art Association.
He exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy Annual Oil and Watercolor Exhibition; the Corcoran Art Gallery Biennial, Washington, D.C.; the National Academy of Design, New York; the Chicago Art Institute; and at many others throughout the country.
Baum’s paintings are represented in many private and permanent collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Toledo Art Museum, National Academy of Design, and the collection of the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Walter Emerson Baum died in 1956.
