Mark Baum
1903–1997

Introduction

Mark Baum (1903–1997) was a Polish-born American painter known initially for his self-taught landscapes and cityscapes who later developed a unique non-objective painting style focused on a single, unique glyph he called "the element." Baum's early work had considerable success in New York in the late 1920s through the early 1940s, with a number of solo shows and museum placements at the Whitney Museum and the Frick, but following World War II, Baum withdrew from the New York art scene to Cape Neddick, Maine, where he lived and painted in relative obscurity from the mid-1950s until his death.