Title: Bar Scene 
 
Date: 1986
Oil on board
 
Approx. size: 41 x 50cm (framed)
32 x 42cm (actual artwork)
 
Kenneth Baker (sans 'Cecil' in his professional signature) was a signwriter by day and a self-taught fine artist by all other hours. His father - a house painter - encouraged his son's artistry, with Baker going on to become one of South Africa's most accessible and talented artists, using his own life experience as a displaced Cape Coloured to inform his art. This particular work captures a rowdy, boisterous night out in a bar, with amorous patrons in a tight clinch in the foreground, others idly sitting nearby. Almost Expressionistic in style and typical of his loose, free strokes and vibrant colouring.