Louise Baker

Career summary

I currently hold curatorial responsibility for the heritage collection at Madame Tussauds London. Since 2014 I have project managed the collections, cataloguing from innocuous storage to an Accredited collection, as well as managing the collections’ interpretation and future development. I have specialised in the social and artistic history of wax portraiture since my master’s degree in 2013. I have lectured on the history and evolvement of the Madame Tussaud collection as well as on wax as a medium within the portraiture and sculpture cannons.

Previous to this I have held positions at the Museum of London in both exhibition project management and visitor experience management roles. I began my career with the Cutty Sark Trust during its five-year conservation and redevelopment project.

Areas of interest / research

I have focused on the social history of Madame Tussauds, and the art history of the medium of wax, in reference to popular portraiture. My research, which I continue to pursue, covers the following areas: The evolution of the wax museum and the deviation of wax portraiture display into the ‘wax work’; the social history and lure of Madame Tussauds’; female wax portrait sculptors of the 18th and early 19th centuries; the portraits of criminals, murders and the condemned; and the history of celebrity in wax portraiture.