Garin Baker

Born in 1961 in New York City, Garin Baker was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Encouraged by his art teachers with a strong focus on working from life at The High School of Art & Design he was awarded a scholarship to study at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. At Pratt he felt a limited availability to work from life so he added to his studied at The Arts Students David A. Leffel and Ted Seth Jacobs. After winning several awards for his work including first prize at The Student Competition at the Society of Illustrators in 1983 he entered the chaos and confusion of the New York art market. Garin found is way by making a living as an illustrator, after several years he built a career as busy illustrator but Garin felt a burning desire to paint what he wanted. So in between deadlines for New York Magazine, Bantam Books, advertising agencies and countless other, he would work on his own paintings and stack them in his studio. Closest to his heart are the influences of great painters like John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla, Russian Realist like Illa Repin, Ivan Shishkin and Americans painters like Winslow Homer, William Merrit Chase and Thomas Eakins, just to name a few. With some invitations to shows and exhibitions he was able to receive some respectable prices for his fine art work. In 1990, with his young family in tow he moved from a small apartment in NY City, 60 miles north along the Hudson River to a 1790 stone house, carriage house and post and beam barn in New Windsor NY. This property needed complete renovations but Garin being ambitious and optimistic had great hopes for the future. With limited resources he began the long process of using his income as an illustrator towards transforming this colonial run down property into a grand home and art studios.

Working primarily from life and on the spot studies he documents a moment in time. His subjects include complex compositions to simple figure studies. His realism, combined with an expressive nature shows passionate engagement with a variety of contemporary images including large New York cityscapes filled with bustling people set in dramatic light situations to spacious rural landscapes reminiscent of the Hudson River School of Painting.

At the core of his work is a strong sense of humanity and its relationship to the environment. “No need to shock or over intellectualize when simple human emotions, communicated visually, can bring us to a place were we can all share our common experiences”. He shows no limits to his interests and explores new subjects with passion and diligence. To his credits are numerous gallery exhibitions and awards. He has been listed in the Encyclopedia of Living Artists and his reputation as a New York Realist was recognized with a nationally reviewed show entitled Three Generations of New York Realist in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1999.

In addition, Garin runs a small Public Art Mural Company called Carriage House Art Studios, which offers apprentiships to young artist and an opportunity to work and improve their craft. Completed projects include The NYS Department of Motor Vehicles, Newburgh, NY, American Road & Transportation Builders, Washington DC, Rudolf & Slatten Engineering Co., Irvine, CA and most recently completed "the largest single work of Public Art along the Hudson River from Albany to New York City", in Newburgh, NY entitled "Archways" The Trestle Mural Project.