Captain Richard E. Baker (1928-2004), originally from Bristol, England, emigrated to New Zealand in 1975. He was a merchant marine with the New Zealand Shipping Company and regularly entered company art competitions resulting in one of his paintings being used as the image for the company Christmas card. He was known as a marine painter, and appropriately he usually worked in watercolours. Not restricting himself to painting ships Baker also painted landscapes such as this image of Mount Ngauruhoe and portraits. Despite a painful arthritic right-hand Baker continued painting into retirement.

Baker exhibited his work at the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London; the principal US marine gallery at Mystic, Connecticut, and at galleries in London, Victoria British Columbia and in Auckland. Baker is represented in the permanent collections of the British Maritime Museum, the Marine Society, University of Southampton and in private collections including the P&O Group London, Fletcher Challenge (NZ) and Nissan (Japan).