Jill Withrow Baker

Jill Withrow Baker

Phone Number: 5026501530
Email Address: jillwbaker@gmail.com

Biography for JILL WITHROW BAKER:

Jill Withrow Baker was born in Ilion, New York, where her father was recruited by McDonnell-Douglas to help build the atomic bomb. He moved his little family of 5 to Richland, Washington, one of the 3 secret cities run by the government. There Jill started in first grade. By the time she was in fifth grade, her father, now a manager for GE (who took over the McDonell-Douglas atomic energy manufacturing area), was the father of 4 girls and was transferred there. Soon they were moved to Seattle, then to California, then to Spain and back to California, then to Seattle again. The family, including Jill, the oldest, and her three younger sisters, moved many times and ended up settling in Los Gatos, California.

 

Graduating from high school in San Ramon, California in 1960, Jill went to Texas to attend Baylor University. She graduated from Baylor and married in 1963, with a degree in Fine Arts and English. Her husband took her to Louisville, KY, to Tallahassee, Florida and then to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he taught at Western Kentucky University.

 

While living in Bowling Green, Kentucky, during the 1970's, among other work, Jill Baker painted the only extant portrait of Thomas Merton done from life. It currently hangs in the Merton Museum on the Bellarmine campus in Louisville.

 

During the 1970's, she also illustrated with pen and ink and with block prints, books of poetry for Kentucky poets, Frank Steele, Jim Wayne Miller and Lee Pennington. She illustrated several of Lee Pennington’s books and some of his published articles.

 

She meanwhile exhibited in one-person exhibitions in New York; Los Angeles; Santa Monica, CA; Scottsdale, AZ; Boston; Frankfort, KY; Waco, TX; Brooklyn, NY; Houston, TX, Louisville, KY, West Lafayette, IA; Nashville, TN; and Bowling Green, KY.

 

While married, in 1975, she lived for a year in Florence, Italy, painting the local landscapes, which were later purchased by friends in Kentucky. She attended the Academia di Belle Arti, and exhibited her collages at the Incontro di Stranieri in the Palazzo Strozzi.

 

She began to exhibit her large paintings in New York in 1975 in midtown Manhattan galleries, such as Goethe Haus, Automation House and Ward-Nasse Gallery. She was also in group shows and galleries in New York and elsewhere from 1975 onward.

 

In l977, her husband was with the Fulbright Professor Exchange and Jill, working under the auspices of the U.S.I.S., and her family lived in Seoul, Korea. There she traveled to visit famous South Korean artists, and held workshops in Fine Arts.

 

After having traveled throughout the Orient to gain insight into the art of the Orient, she exhibited the resulting artwork, about 50 pieces, in a show at the old U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, which was received as a great success by the public and newspapers in Seoul.

 

In l978, Jill had a one-person exhibition of her paintings at Purdue University, which toured to New York to be shown at 178 Prince Street Gallery.

 

In 1979, she moved to New York City to exhibit at Ward-Nasse Gallery and to attend graduate school. She lived in Westbeth, an artist's housing building in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, and in 1980 bought a loft on Broadway, which she owned for 17 years.

 

She earned her M.F.A. degree from Pratt Institute in 1981 in Painting. Meanwhile, she was represented by galleries, such as the Speed Museum in Kentucky, in New York and Texas, and exhibited in juried exhibitions internationally.

 

After graduation from Pratt in 1981, she worked for Institutional Investor, a magazine on Madison Avenue, served as editor of Women Artists News and was active with W.C.A., W.A.A. and other arts organizations in New York.

 

She continued to be represented by galleries in New York, Louisville, KY and Houston, TX. She was invited to exhibit her work in the American Show at the Palais Royale in Paris. Later, she was represented by galleries in London, Louisville, L.A. and other cities.

 

Her illustrations, for publications in Kentucky and New York was in demand. Besides illustrating articles for Self Magazine and Institutional Investor, she eventually illustrated 24 books, including 3 of her own.

 

From 1982 to 1991, she lived in Los Angeles, California, and painted and exhibited in L.A. galleries. She exhibited her paintings and collages at galleries in Los Angeles, as well as curating and judging numerous art exhibitions.

 

In Los Angeles, she was President of Los Angeles Artists Equity, a chapter of the national organization for visual artists for four years. She served many more years on the Artists Equity National Board as Regional Vice President for the Southwest U.S. She also began teaching in the Art Department at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, CA.

 

In 1991, after moving back to New York City, she served as President of the New York Artists Equity Association and painted and exhibited from her New York loft in SoHo.

 

In 1996 she bought a studio/home and opened a gallery in downtown Gallatin, TN.

 

In 1998, she founded ART–Sumner, a non-profit fine arts organization of artists and art connoisseurs in Sumner County, TN. She was President of the Arts Council in Gallatin, TN in 1999. She taught art at Nossi College of Art in Nashville, from and began to work for Vanderbilt as a web designer and graphic illustrator. She also taught art privately in her studio.

 

From 2000, she taught Art History and Humanities at the University of Phoenix, Nashville Campus, Drawing and Introductory Art for the Art Institute of Tennessee—Nashville.

 

In 2007 she moved to New Harmony, IN, opened a studio there and showed locally. She taught for the Art Department at the University of Southern Indiana, beginning in 2009, and was on the faculty for many years.

 

In 2012 she moved back to Louisville, KY to open a private studio in Middletown, Kentucky and continues to be active in the arts, exhibiting world-wide and teaching art to serious artists in her studio.

 

You may see more of her biography in Who’s Who In America, current issues of Who’s Who in American Art, Marquis’ Who’s Who of American Women Artists, An Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century North American Women Artists, Who’s Who in the United States (Strathmore), and Female Artists in the United States: a Research and Resource Guide. She is also listed in Community Leaders of America, 1980-2006.

Withrow Lineage: My father is Alfred Seiders Withrow. My daughter has traced my father's lineage, back to King Henry V, of England, and the Plantagenets. I am not privy to her Ancester.com family tree, but she has given me the ancestors in a photo. (I don't know how to upload it.)