Ernest Baker

Ernest Baker was an illustrator and created more than 300 covers for Time magazine and other political cartoons. He also produced various drawings and posters for advertising purposes. Baker had grown up in the modest household of the family of a small shirt manufacturer in Poughkeepsie, New York. He first learned to draw by a correspondence course and, after starting his career as a cartoonist for a local newspaper, studied at Colgate University in New York.

Baker then worked as a freelance artist, initially designing mainly stamps, propaganda, and advertising posters. One of his few sports motifs was the boxers on a cover of Fortune magazine from April 1931, but it is not known whether this is the print submitted for the art competitions. The covers for Fortune gave him his breakthrough. After a financial dry spell during the Great Depression, Baker mostly worked for Time. He later moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina, and after the death of his wife, to Norton, Massachusetts.