William Baptiste Baird artwork • painting • previously for sale Poultry on a farmyard

The American painter Baird was born in Chicago, but moved to Paris as a young adult for several years to perfect his painting techniques. From 1872 to 1899 he exhibited very regularly at the Salon and in art dealers in the French capital. Baird mainly painted peasant genre scenes and pastoral scenes with animals, inspired by the rural surroundings of Paris, Barbizon and Lake Geneva. Baird was a member of the National Academy of Design, where he exhibited from 1875 to 1879, and participated in exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1878, 1882, and 1883.