University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

During her employment as museum artist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology from 1908-1936, M. (Mary) Louise Baker established an international reputation as the preeminent archaeological artist of her time with unmatched technical skill in scientific illustration. Her work at the University Museum included paintings of Maya pottery for limited edition folio volumes; paintings and reconstructions of Ur of the Chaldees’ royal tombs findings for Sir C. Leonard Woolley and of the Palace of Merenptah at Memphis, and a reconstructed drawing of the Piedras Negras Lintel 3. She spent much of her career dividing her time between the positions of museum artist and as art teacher at the George School in Bucks County, PA. A life-long Quaker, M. Louise Baker was born in Alliance, Ohio, on August 4, 1872. At the age of 19, she came to Pennsylvania to complete her education. By 1900, she had decided to concentrate on art and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. Early in her career, Baker was a free-lance artist for commercial illustrations and children’s magazines. She also did scientific drawings for archaeologist Clarence B. Moore at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. In 1908, she was hired by Dr. George Byron Gordon at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. During her career as an archaeological artist, Baker traveled to parts of the world where women never ventured unattended. The M. Louise Baker collection spans the years from 1889 to 1962 and contains her unpublished autobiography; 54 detailed diaries from 1889 to 1960; sketches, commercial art, illustrated stories and poems for children’s publications from her early career; scrapbooks which she compiled; drawings and paintings. A large portion of the collection, including Baker’s unpublished memoir, family photographs, scrapbooks, and diaries, was donated to the Penn Museum Archives in 2011 by Baker family members after a connection with Museum Research Associate Dr. Elin Danien. It is housed in ten archival boxes, plus additional drawings and paintings housed in the Oversize Plans and Drawings Collection and other examples of Baker’s work relating to Ur and Egypt on display in Museum exhibit galleries. The Penn Museum owns over 500 works by Baker, including all her work for the Maya Pottery publications, much of it unpublished.