James Madison Carpenter and George Baker: An Analytical Description of an Artistic Relationship

Abstract

Between 1933 and 1935 James Madison Carpenter, an American from Harvard College, assembled a large collection of folk plays as part of his important folk performance material. During the course of his work in the Cotswolds Carpenter met George Baker, a rural labourer and a talented cartoonist and sketcher. Carpenter asked Baker to prepare some illustrations for a planned book on folk plays. This paper explores the cooperation between the two men and discusses the reasons why Baker’s depiction of the characters in the Cotswold plays are more successful than the images of characters from other plays.