Thomas King Baker

A conforming insurance underwriter by day, Thomas King Baker devoted most of his free time to secretly sketching and painting quirky and satirical depictions of middle-class socialite fads that he observed while he and his wife attended operas, dinners, and other social outings at night after work. 

Baker’s interest in painting started in the early 1950s after his wife, Mila Hoover (an assistant to the director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) bought him a set of watercolor paints. Baker’s only formal training was a brief night art class and, though his wife and friends knew of his hobby, Baker never exhibited any works while he was alive. His work was often carried out within the pages of inexpensive dime store paper pads and painted on odd scraps of wood. In 1972, he died at home from the effects of alcoholism -- in the kitchen nook where he often painted.

In 1991, Thomas McCormick, an art dealer, came across a few of Baker’s paintings in the basement of the late painter Frederic James, and after tracing them back to Baker, contacted his wife, who had cataloged a large cache of her husband’s works. In 1997, some of Baker’s paintings were exhibited at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri. The exhibit was titled Thomas King Baker: His Secret Life and had an accompanying catalog, Oh for Pity's Sake, We've Already Seen This Opera: The Art of Thomas King Baker.

The bulk of Baker’s works were eventually gifted in 2007 to INTUIT: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago, Illinois.