X was born on 5 MAY 1923 in Bulgaria, the daughter of unknown parents.
She died on 14 MAR 2021 in Dallas, Texas.
Her husband was Fred Isaac Baker, who she married in Chicago, IL. The date has not been found. Their two known children were Jeffrey (1951-?) and Corinne (1957-?).
| Event | Date | Details | Source | Multimedia | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birth | 05 MAY 1923 |
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| Death | 14 MAR 2021 |
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Note 1
Edith is also known as Didi. She runs an art gallery in Dallas, Texas that emphasizes Texas art.
Note 2
BAKER, Edith Edith Arie Baker passed away on March 14, 2021 in Dallas at the age of 97. She is survived by son Jeff Baker (Catherine Horsey), daughter Rini Andres (Roger Andres), granddaughter Cailey Andres, sister in law Eva Arie, and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband of 57 years, Fred Isaac Baker; parents Victoria and Jacques Arie, and brother Rudolph Arie. The family requests memorial donations to: Emergency Artists Support League (EASL) , Vogel Alcove, or Dallas Holocaust Museum. Published by Dallas Morning News on Mar. 16, 2021.
Edith Baker, who survived Nazi terror to become an institution in Dallas arts, dies at 97
Baker owned her own art gallery for years and founded the Dallas Art Dealers Association.
https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/visual-arts/2021/03/14/edith-baker-who-survived-nazi-terror-to-become-an-institution-in-dallas-arts-dies-at-97/
Edith Baker lost her home, her possessions and much of her community when she and her Jewish family sought refuge in the mountains of her native Bulgaria in 1943 to escape Nazi invaders. And yet, she was sustained by a love of art, a passion she took with her years later to her new home in Dallas, where she founded the Dallas Art Dealers Association. Baker died early Sunday of natural causes. She was 97.
Five years after her harrowing escape in World War II, she married a Jewish American named Fred Baker, with whom she moved to Chicago in 1949 and then to Dallas in 1951.
“He announced one day that we were moving to Dallas because he had a job here,” Baker said in a 2014 interview with The Dallas Morning News. “And, of course, for me, it was, ‘Dallas? Where is Dallas? What is Dallas?’”
Initially, she said, “the city of cowboys and Neiman Marcus” was a “rude awakening” for a couple from Chicago. But soon she was taking classes at what was then the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in Fair Park, learning from such masters as sculptor Octavio Medelliín and painter Otis Dozier. Her keen interest and expertise led her to teach a course on modern art at her synagogue, Temple Emanu-El — but only after overcoming, she said, a triad of emotions: “Frightened, insecure, unprepared.”
In 1985, Baker founded the Dallas Art Dealers Association. It started out with 12 member galleries and now claims 25, including not-for-profit art spaces. In honor of DADA’s 20th anniversary in 2005, Baker’s family created the Edith Baker Art Scholarship Fund, which benefits senior students at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
“Edith Baker was family, she was my best friend,” said Kenneth Craighead, whose gallery, Craighead Green, has been a longtime fixture in Dallas.
She was, Craighead said, “the first lady of the arts in Dallas.” Over time, “I began to understand that everything she told me was the truth or soon became the truth.”
Her contribution to the arts, Craighead said, “is immeasurable. It would be an impossible task to count the number of artists, clients, friends and family that Edith touched in such a constructive, personal and loving way.”
Baker’s daughter, Rini Andres, 64, said her mother “promoted the work of Texas artists at a time when only a few other pioneering gallerists were doing so. She touched the lives of many, many people and had an indelible impact on the local art community. She believed that art was the soul of humanity, and she wanted to grow our collective soul.”
DADA member and gallery owner Talley Dunn said she will most remember Baker for her enthusiasm and her passion. And for always believing in the power of art.
“Art isn’t a question of hanging a picture on the wall,” Baker once said. “It’s a visual history. It has given me a view of the world. It is my favorite language, and I communicate freely through it.”
Baker’s son, Jeff Baker, 68, said he sees his mother’s legacy as that of “an artist’s guru. She led you on a journey of exploration and gave you self-confidence and faith in the path you’d chosen. I cannot even count the number of artists I’ve talked with over the years who’ve expressed that sentiment to me. All of them are so grateful for her wisdom.”
Baker and her husband, who died in 2006, arrived in Dallas on an August afternoon, launching what she called an unlikely love affair with the city. Their train rolled into Union Station with her “dressed in a hat and gloves. It was 107 degrees. That was one big sweaty day,” she told The News with a laugh.
In so many ways, she said, Dallas was “the beginning of my life,” a place where art “took over. It was my salvation in so many ways, the thing I could really hold on to.”
Baker and her partners opened the Collector’s Choice Gallery in 1978. In 1981, as its sole owner, she renamed it the Edith Baker Gallery. It remained open until the early 2000s.
In 1992, she and her friend Patricia Meadows founded the Emergency Artists Support League, known as EASL, which provides financial assistance for artists, who are, Baker’s son said, “in dire straits, such as not being able to afford health insurance.” In 1997, the Dallas Visual Arts Center bestowed its annual Legend Award on Baker.