Morley Baer

Morley Baer (April 5, 1916 – November 9, 1995), an American photographer and teacher, was born in Toledo, Ohio.

Baer was head of the photography department at the San Francisco Art Institute, and known for his photographs of San Francisco's "Painted Ladies" Victorian houses, California buildings, landscape and seascapes.

Baer learned basic commercial photography in Chicago and honed his skills as a World War II United States Navy combat photographer.

Returning to civilian life, over the next few years he developed into "one of the foremost architectural photographers in the world," receiving important commissions from premier architects in post-war Central California.

He attended the University of Toledo in 1934 and later transferred to the University of Michigan from where he graduated in 1937 with a BA in English.

Continuing on there, he earned an MA in Theater Arts in 1938.

Baer soon found a dull but well-paying job in the advertising office of the Chicago department store Marshall Field's.

Dissatisfied, he apprenticed as a low-paid menial assistant, at a greatly reduced salary, to a Michigan Avenue commercial photography company.

He shortly was photographing in the field, and developing and printing photographs.

Along with two associates, Baer was sent on assignment to Colorado in 1939.

He had seen an exhibition of Edward Weston's photographs at the Katherine Kuh Galleries in January of that year, and became enamored at the sparse elegance of Weston's black-and-white prints.

He extended his trip west to California to meet Weston at his studio in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

The two did not meet, but Baer made the most of the trip by visiting San Francisco, the Monterey Peninsula, and Carmel.

Although he returned to Chicago, he already had applied for Art Center School while in San Francisco but his plans were derailed by the onset of World War II.

In 1941 he enlisted in the Navy almost immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor and went through the Navy photo school at Pensacola, where he learned to adjust to its stereotyped approach to producing photographs.

Baer graduated, commissioned as an ensign, and was transferred to Norfolk for a series of stories on the Atlantic Theater of operations.

His duties included public relations, aircraft recon, editorial assignments, teaching, and combat photography from aircraft and carriers.

Accompanied by a writer, Baer covered military operations in North Africa, southern France, Brazil, and the Caribbean Sea.

In 1945 he was assigned to the operational Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, commanded by the photographer Edward Steichen.

Working under a variety of terrain, sea, and weather conditions, ever changing light, and new environments in physically demanding activities, he made dozens of photographs a day, and perfected his technical and compositional photographic skills.

In 1945, Baer, now a civilian in San Francisco, met up again with Frances Manney, a young woman awaiting admission to Stanford University, who previously had hired Baer as her photography tutor during his brief time in Norfolk.

When discharged from the Navy in 1946 he was a complete and confident professional photographer.

The two married and investing their dwindling funds, established a commercial photography business in a small store-front studio in Carmel in 1946.

Baer had no difficulty discovering opportunities aplenty in the booming post-war building trades.

In dire need of competent photographers to illustrate their projects, builders and architects vied to hire the Baer team.

As his reputation grew, he had as much work as he could handle.

His published architectural photographs from that time testify to his active professional career.

His clients were among the more noted Bay Area architectural firms.

Although Baer had briefly fulfilled his long-held dream of meeting Edward Weston, they had met only briefly.

So, through a Weston friend sometime in 1947, Baer learned of an Ansco view camera for sale, a camera he had previously used in Chicago and was very familiar with its capabilities.

Able to buy it for the then princely sum of $90, it became the camera he most used for the rest of his life.

Although he had others for some assignments, the Ansco was the instrument with which he made his most memorable photographs.

It became almost an extension of his photographic seeing and visualization in his later fine art landscape work.

Morley and Frances became frequent visitors to Edward Weston's home/studio in Carmel's Wildcat Hill and with whom they had a close friendship until Weston's death in 1958.

For the production of Weston's monumental photographic Portfolios I and II Morley worked closely with Edward's son Brett Weston in making the prints, while Frances did the spotting of the finished prints.

Besides being helpful to Weston, this association greatly benefited Baer's career in the world of fine-art photography.

Through Weston he met most of the prominent West Coast photographers.

In the early 1970s, influenced by a friendship with Edward Weston, Baer began to concentrate on his personal landscape art photography.

During the last decades of the 20th century, he also became a sought-after instructor in various colleges and workshops teaching the art of landscape photography.

Morley Baer's parents encouraged him in an active outdoor life growing up in Toledo.