Frances Baker was a British painter who was active in Ireland in the early years of the 20th century.
Biography
Frances Baker was born into a prominent family of medical professionals: her father, John Neville Davies-Colley, was chief surgeon at Guy's Hospital, London, her brothers, Robert Davies-Colley and Hugh Davies-Colley, also became surgeons at Guy's, and her sister, Eleanor Davies-Colley, was the founder of the South London Hospital for Women and Children and the first woman elected to the Royal College of Surgeons. Frances, the eldest child, studied at the Slade School of Art, taking a certificate in figure drawing in the 1894-95 session. She married Cecil Cautley Baker in 1897; a surveyor by profession, he had taken first prize honors at the Royal Agricultural College in 1877 and passed the professional examination of the Institution of Surveyors in 1885. The couple had two daughters: Lettice Cautley Baker, born in Guildford, Surrey, England in 1898; and Frances Cautley Baker, born in Thakeham, Sussex, England in 1902. The family moved to Rosses Point, County Sligo, where Cecil Baker leased oyster farming rights in the Sligo estuary. He died suddenly in 1903, and his widow and young family moved to Ballysadare, where Frances had a farm, worked as a photographer and continued painting. Working both in oil and watercolor, producing portraits and landscapes, Baker exhibited regularly with George William Russell. In Dublin, Baker was acquainted with Irish activists and artists including Constance Gore-Booth and her second husband Casimir Dunin Markievicz. She exhibited paintings in a joint show at the Leinster Lecture Hall in 1911 with Markievicz, Russell, and Paul and Grace Henry. She also showed work in exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Frances Baker married a second time in 1915 to Dublin physician Francis Kennedy Cahill. Her husband was active in amateur theatrical circles, and they were involved with the United Arts Club in Dublin. In 1919, she opened a textile weaving workshop called the Crock of Gold in Dublin. The firm became well known as part of the craft revival of handwork and exhibited at the Irish Decorative Art Association exhibitions pre-Partition and the Arts and Crafts Society shows throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s. As with other successful handcrafting businesses at the time, the firm’s traditional handmade textiles sold to modern fashion designers, including French designer Coco Chanel. Baker's daughter Frances and her husband, the writer Michael Farrell, later managed the highly successful business. Baker's second husband Dr. Francis Kennedy Cahill died suddenly in 1930 in Dublin, while Baker was in England attending the funeral of her son-in-law, the Cambridge mathematician Frank P. Ramsey. Baker lived in France for a time but settled in Cambridge by the late 1930s. She died in Cambridge in December 1944.
Paintings
After her second marriage, Baker was known as Mrs. Kennedy Cahill and Frances Cahill; she signed her work with the initials “FB” and “FC.”
