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Baker Art Gallery was a photography studio in Columbus, Ohio from 1862-1955. Among those to have their portraits taken were William McKinley, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Annie Oakley. They also won first place at various exhibitions, including the World's Columbian Exhibition.
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Background
Lorenzo Marvin Baker was born April 25, 1834 in Copenhagen, New York, and came to Columbus, Ohio in 1854. He worked at the Neil House, (a hotel), and was an officer in the state penitentiary under Governor Chase, and served for a short time in the Union Army during the American Civil War. In 1862 he started a photography business and established a gallery.
Baker took on his employee, John Samuel Schneider, (1860 - 1926), and his son, Duane Henry Baker, (1859 - 1934), as equal 1/3 partners in the business after the younger Baker graduated from Ohio State University and Schneider from Baldwin-Wallace College. They ran a highly successful business that included Presidents Hayes, McKinley, Taft, and Harding as clients. After the founder died in 1924, Duane Baker continued the business. Two more generations of the Baker family continued the business until 1955, when they donated their photos and negatives to the Ohio Historical Society
Locations
The gallery was located at 106 S. High Street, and later moved to 232 S. High Street. They moved to another location after 1939.
Awards
John S. Schneider was president of the Photographers Association of America in 1895. The gallery won the Photographers Association of America Gold Medal in 1889, Chicago Worlds Fair, Highest Award, 1893, Photographer's Association of Germany, grand prize, 1897 and awards at the Ohio State Fair, beginning in 1874, for photographs plain and finished with watercolor and ink.