William Baker: A prolific and popular Wellington artist
By Ian Wards, Wheako Pōneke Experience Wellington Senior Curator (Taonga) | 4 March, 2025
Paintings and objects by a prolific artist, whose work was labelled as common-place by critics but was hugely popular with everyday New Zealanders, are now part of Wellington Museum’s collection – helping us to tell the story of Pōneke and its people.
We have acquired several artworks by William Baker (1864-1929) and his family members. Baker lived most of his life around Wellington but painted romanticised New Zealand landscapes as he travelled the country. The artworks and objects donated to Wellington Museum offer insight into Baker’s creativity, his family life and friendships.
Alongside the paintings, several of Baker’s sketch books, colour recipes and paint brushes are now part of the Museum’s collection. Artworks by his son Ernest and daughter Ellen, stand alongside one created by his close friend Charles Martin.
William Baker had no formal art training. He apprenticed as an upholsterer, working for Wellington cabinetmaker Joseph Martin. It was Joseph Martin who discovered Baker’s artistic talent while having him decorate cabinetry panels. By the late 1880s Baker had left the upholstery trade behind to work as a commercial artist. He remained a close friend of the Martin family – often going on outings to paint with Joseph’s son Charles. It is through Martin family descendants, Heather Keith and Peter Martin, that many of our Baker paintings and objects have been donated.
Contemporary art critics in the late 19th and early 20th century argued that Baker’s works were stylised and romanticised, not reflecting the true nature of New Zealand’s landscapes. They were right. Baker would often paint landscapes showing idealised scenes, with stagecoaches, flights of birds or small boats added – not always to scale. Baker would add, remove or rearrange features like rocks or trees to produce the idyllic scene he was after.
One critic, writing in the Evening Post on 11 September 1897 felt, “The trail of the commonplace is over most of the pictures of W.G. Baker.”
Despite this and other criticism, Baker’s art was hugely popular with everyday New Zealanders. In 1911 an exhibition of his work in Wellington was reported to have attracted 100,000 visitors.
Praising Baker as an ‘apostle of brightness’ an article in the Evening Post on 22 August 1908 proclaimed, “The artist has travelled far for his subjects, and has induced the hills and dales, the country roads, and the trees to faithfully give a message of good-will for man.”
It should be mentioned that these words may well have been written by Baker’s canny art dealer John Schapiro and spliced anonymously into the article. Schapiro was a shrewd marketer, providing purple prose promoting Baker’s art to newspapers throughout the country, to coincide with its sale in small town hotels and clubrooms.
Be that as it may, Baker was popular and extremely prolific. In December 1911 he sold an entire exhibition of 101 paintings. Six months later he exhibited 93 more for sale. That’s a production rate of around one painting every three days. According to Heather Keith, Baker even framed many of his own picture frames.
Baker was ignored by the art establishment because of the commercial nature and popular appeal of his work. He doesn’t seem to have cared. He carried on regardless. He managed to raise and support a family from his work, while sharing his creative enthusiasm with friends and his children.
Baker painted many of his artworks in the field, in hard-to-reach locations the length of the country. One of our recently acquired paintings is a watercolour Near Sinclair Heads, Wellington, probably painted around 1903. This scene looks from Sinclair Head toward Taputeranga island along the south coast and shows a wild landscape long before it became the playground of 4WD vehicles.
William Baker made art for sale. He knew what his audience liked and painted what they wanted. He raised a family from his work and gave a vision of New Zealand landscapes to the sitting room walls of everyday homes. He may have romanticised these landscapes but through them showed a genuine love for this country. One which he was happy to share.