The Fifth Annual Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund for 2010

In September 2010, DADA will offer the financial award of the Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund to a student pursuing visual art at a Dallas community college. The DADA Scholarship Committee will jury an exhibition of DCCCD students curated by the faculty members of the 7 community colleges. The winner will be given a financial award and the opportunity for a mentorship and internship with a DADA member. DADA continues its dedication to Booker T. Washington visual art students by presenting The Arts Magnet Spring Senior Show at DADA member Norwood Flynn Gallery. Proceeds benefit the students and DADA’s Edith Baker Art Scholarship. DADA also presents a Career Fair each Spring for Booker T visual art students.

Winners to date have included Maria Cortes, Pepper Ellett, Gustavo Galvan and Everett Brown.

Click here to read about DADA's 2009 Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund Recipient, Maria Cortes.

Click here to read about DADA's 2008 Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund Recipient, Pepper Ellet.

Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund

In celebration of its 20th anniversary in 2005, the Dallas Art Dealers Association created the Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund honoring the respected owner and director of The Edith Baker Gallery in Dallas. One of DADA's founding members, Edith owned and directed The Edith Baker Gallery in Dallas for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2004. The Edith Baker Scholarship benefits students pursuing study of the visual arts through a financial award, mentoring, internships, a gallery exhibition and a career fair.

Proceeds from individual donations, annual DADA events and collection jars at each DADA member location support the Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund. Please help us continue this by donating now.

*The Edith Baker Art Scholarship and Artist Career Development Fund is a tax exempt non-profit organization under Section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

About Edith Baker

Long a prolific contributor to the Dallas arts scene, Edith Baker was born and educated in Bulgaria, where she graduated from the American College with a Bachelor of Arts degree.  Studies at Chicago’s Art Institute were a prelude to her continued scholarship in Dallas, where she studied during the 1950s with the city’s prominent core of contemporary artists: Octavio Medellin, Otis Dozier, Jerry Bywaters, Roger Winter and DeForrest Judd.

After a period of travel and study of art history and painting in France, Portugal and Mexico was terminated, she returned to Dallas in 1963 to establish her own studio and for the next 15 years taught and lectured, including a three year symposium at Temple Emanu-El on “Understanding of Modern Art” based on a syllabus developed at Brandeis University.

While continuing to teach, in 1977 she became a partner in a Dallas art gallery, which ultimately evolved into the Edith Baker Gallery, with a concentration on the work of local and regional contemporary artists, another evidence of her devotion to the local artistic community.  In 1985 she became a charter member and active participant in the establishment of DADA, the Dallas Art Dealers Association.  In 1992 Edith Baker and Patricia Meadows co-founded EASL, the Emergency Artists Support League, a non-profit organization that provides financial assistance to North Texas visual artists who are in dire distress because of unforeseen medical emergency or catastrophic events.

Although Edith Baker’s enthusiastic efforts in the success of EASL contributed toward her receiving the Dallas Visual Arts Center’s (now known as Dallas Contemporary) Legend Award in 1977, as well as a prestigious High Profile article in The Dallas Morning News, she believes that the real heroes are the artists who contribute their work to the annual fund raising events, which distribute grants to those artists in need.