Dr. Susan Baker

Susan J. Baker is an associate professor of art history in the Department of Arts and Humanities at the University of Houston-Downtown.  She earned a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Kansas in 1994 and came to UHD in 1995.  An expert in early twentieth-century American painting, Dr. Baker has written on the life and work of artist George Tooker and was curator of “Human in Form:  Later Drawings of Paul Cadmus,” an exhibit of male nude drawings held at the UHD’s O’Kane Gallery in 2004. Dr. Baker is author of “A Duel with Fernando de Rojas: Picasso’s Celestina Prints,” and is currently writing an article about a Celestinesque image by Tooker. She is also preparing a manuscript with Professor Mark Cervenka on the art of Canadian-born magic realist Audrey Buller. Dr. Baker is co-curator of “Drawing Lessons: The Early Academic Drawings from the Art Students League in New York” currently on exhibit at the O’Kane Gallery.

Exhibited Publication

Baker, Susan. “Naked Boys, Desiring Women: Male Beauty in Modern Art and Photography.” Hunks, Hotties, and Pretty Boys: Twentieth-Century Representations of Male Beauty. Ed. Steven L. Davis and Maglina Lubovich. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2009. 12-48.