PAINTING PALACE
Source Supplier of Oil Paintings

One of the only Pennsylvania Impressionists to be born in historic Bucks County, Baum lived his entire life in Sellersville and captured its scenes often in oil on canvas. Baum's wife, Flora was a constant companion and often joined him on his painting outings. Baum remains most famous for the scenes of rural life drawn from painting outings in and around Bucks County and the Lehigh Valley in the 1920s and 1930s.

In terms of art collecting, Baum is best known for his mature compositions, particularly those depicting Bucks County landscapes and small rural houses that were executed in the 1920s. It is these pictures that demonstrate Baum at the height of his talent. The early to mature career paintings, particularly those of the 1920s and 1930s are undoubtedly Baum's finest works.

By the 1940s, Baum abandoned oil paint and started to experiment with the media of tempera and casein with less than wonderful results. It is evident that these post-1940 works did not consistently possess the same artistic style and visual prominence of his earlier oil paintings from the 1920s. While he was a very prolific painter and produced thousands of paintings, Baum's later work show his interest in establishing the Baum School of Art and working in a looser and less controlled style of brushwork. These late career paintings show a harder, light-reflective surface attention.

A skilled and beloved teacher, Baum painted with his students outdoors in the plein aire tradition of both the French and American Impressionists. A painter who captured the Pennsylvania landscape in an Impressionistic style, Baum was consistently inspired by the work of his fellow New Hope School painters, Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber, and George Sotter. His relationship with these artists helped to foster a second generation of New Hope School painters whose works are widely collected today.

Walter Baum was a fellow of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Baum studied with William Trego from 1904-1910 and then, continued his studies at the Academy with Trego, Daniel Garber, and Thomas Anshutz in 1910. In 1925, at the pinnacle of his career, Baum won the prestigious Sesnan Gold Medal for his landscape composition called Sunlight and Shadow. The work is presently in the collection of the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, PA.

Walter Baum was an art editor and critic for the Philadelphia Evening and Sunday Bulletin. In 1938, he published a book on the Pennsylvania German heritage in Bucks and Lehigh Counties called, Two Hundred Years. Baum also painted scenes of historic Manayunk, areas of Bucks County, the streets of Allentown and Tamaqua, all in Pennsylvania. A founder of the Baum School of Art and the Allentown Art Museum, Baum was an art advocate and influential teacher. His works are included in major collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Toledo Art Museum, The Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy, The Michener Art Museum, and the Allentown Art Museum.

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