Elizabeth Gowdy Baker

Early life and education

Elizabeth Gowdy Baker (née Elizabeth Stewart Gowdy; 1860–1927) was an American portrait painter. She primarily worked in watercolors. Elizabeth Gowdy was born in 1860, in Xenia, Ohio. She was the daughter of Ellen (née Johnson) and George W. Gowdy. where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Baker studied at Cooper Union, Art Students League of New York, New York School of Art (now Parsons School of Design), and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Baker was a member of the Boston Art Students' Association and the Art Workers' Club for Women, New York City.

Baker demonstrated skill and manipulation of large washes of color. She exhibited aquarelle (watercolor) works at Knoedler's Galleries, including one of Mrs. James J. Clarkson, in which the painting of lace gown, blue scarf, pearls and other accessories demonstrated careful detail work. A less conventional likeness of Mrs. James A. Stillman (née Anne "Fifi" Urquhart Potter), showed the subject in a picturesque gown of iridescent silk draped with a scarf of delicate lace. Three portraits were exhibited in the artist's studio in the Tiffany and Company Building, those of Mr. and Mrs. James A. Baker and their daughter, of Houston, Texas.

Later in life she lived in Palm Beach, Florida and spent her Summers at Lake Placid, New York.