Oleda 2007

Born in Plant City, Florida, near Tampa, in 1934, Oleda Baker was raised in Miami. At age 26, married and the mother of a 1 ½ year son, she traveled to New York City to become a high fashion TV and photographers' model. Her modeling career, primarily under contract with the prestigious Wilhelmina Agency, was her main activity for the next dozen years . . . but that's not all she did.

While still modeling, she authored her first book, The Model's Way to Beauty, Slenderness and Glowing Health, published by Prentice-Hall. She went on to produce seven more Beauty/Health books, published by Doubleday, Putnam and Ballantine, as well as a quasi-autobiographical novel, titled Reluctant Goddess, published by Jove. She promoted the books touring the country doing TV Talk Show, Radio and Newspaper interviews.

Still modeling and while writing her second book, I Hate to Make Up (Prentice-Hall), Oleda founded Oleda and Company, Inc.(1971), a Beauty/Health/Anti-aging products company, specializing in Skin Care, Hair Care, Vitamins and Supplements, Makeup, and Spa Products, among others.

Today, Oleda is still CEO of Oleda and Company, Inc. that now offers some 300 products internationally and maintains an extensive Web site, www.oleda.com.

Oleda Age 36

Oleda Begins to Paint

At age 36, still modeling for Wilhelmina and writing her early books, Oleda developed an inexplicable, strong desire to put her feelings on canvas. So, one day she simply walked into one of New York City's art supply stores and purchased everything in sight in order to get started. She had never had a brush in her hand, nor had she ever had a lesson in Art-and to this day still has not-but somehow she knew she just had to paint; and she discovered she had an uncanny, innate talent for it.

After completing her first ten paintings, a dear friend and art collector, whose personal collection included original Monet's and Rembrandt's, on seeing Oleda's work took her to show three of her paintings to art expert Victor Hammer of Hammer Galleries. Mr. Hammer, although he disavowed his expertise in naïve art, thought enough of them to have them sent to Mr. Otto Kallir, a renowned expert in the field.

Mr. Kallir wanted to see more, so Oleda took three additional canvases and met with him in his Manhattan studio. Mr. Kallir thought so highly of Oleda's work that he invited her to be one of five artists in the last show he would give before retiring. "I will introduce you as my new, young artist," he said.

Sadly, Oleda could not accept this wonderful offer. Mr. Kallir wanted thirty paintings from her for his show, which was only a few months away, and Oleda, so new to painting, and not sure of herself, didn't know if she could paint even one more, much less produce that many in so short a time. Moreover, she was then under contract with a publisher to complete a new beauty/health book, she was still modeling for Wilhelmina, and she was working on the startup of her new company. Taking on another project of completing twenty more paintings was just too much to commit to. Still, Oleda's elation that such a famous art expert would even consider her work stimulated in her an even stronger desire to paint.

In the 1980's Oleda had two shows in New York City at which many of her paintings were sold. One collector of naïve art, Mr. Allen Fortunoff, purchased three of her works.

In 1986, Oleda was invited to exhibit her paintings at the Wichita Art Association Museum. They exhibited thirty canvases and asked her to be guest speaker at the museum's members' only dinner, introducing her as the "New York Naïve Fantasy Painter." They also arranged TV talk show and newspaper interviews to help promote the museum and Oleda's art. The museum bought one of the paintings, My Sister, Francey, for their collection,

Shortly after that, Oleda closed her studio in New York and moved her residence to Texas where, for the next eighteen years she focused on the operation of Oleda and Company, Inc., and, without a studio in which to do so, produced no paintings during that period.

Oleda's Artistic Rebirth

Oleda and her husband, Richard, were married in 2001 taking up residence in Boca Raton, Florida. Richard, after seeing Oleda's paintings and pictures of her previous work, and sensing her deep desire and love of creating oil on canvas, had an art studio constructed on their home so that Oleda could begin painting again. Delayed by the damage caused by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, the studio was finally completed in 2006. Ever since its completion, Oleda, after more than twenty years without a brush in her hand, has been in it almost every day, once again painting her feelings. After the studio was built, a dear friend, well known in the art world, inspired Oleda to take her work very seriously. She is doing just that

Oleda's paintings express beautiful thoughts, flowers, animals, birds, trees, angels, happiness, friendship, and most of all, love and peace…it's very rare that she will paint an unhappy canvas…but when she does ….it's still an expression of her feelings!