Ernest Baber, a Still Life of Peace Roses From a Santa Fe Garden

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The handwritten note on the bottom stretcher strip in back reads “Dear Ted, I’m glad you appreciate these Peace roses … Read more The handwritten note on the bottom stretcher strip in back reads “Dear Ted, I’m glad you appreciate these Peace roses from Ann Marie’s Santa Fe Garden. E. Baber.” Well, who wouldn’t. The rose was named “Peace” and formally introduced on April 29, 1945, the day the Nazi’s shattered capital of Berlin capitulated, thereupon ending World War II in Europe.
These particular roses were beautifully observed by an American artist, Ernest Morton Baber, who is renowned for his still lifes, growing out of an admiration for the Dutch Masters. He is quoted as considering when thinking of a composition, “what Vermeer might pick if he were alive today.”
According to the LeKae and Taos Galleries in Scottsdale, Baber “often depicts objects emerging from darkness to areas of isolated light,” as seen here. He further enjoys "doing florals, mostly for their beauty and delicacy but also for what they symbolize in life and nature, the finite and the infinite."
Born in Denver in 1949, Baber studied at the city’s Colorado Institute of Art, and subsequently at the Art Students League in New York. But knowing he would benefit from seeing the great masters’ work firsthand, he journeyed to Spain and France for the museums. Then he lived in London for two years, returning to France to marry the Anne Marie of the painting’s message. After seven years in India, the couple moved to Santa Fe. And thanks to the note, the flowers depicted here, painted in full bloom, are apparently cuttings from the Babers’ own garden to be enjoyed in this work, and never to wilt. See less