William Baptiste Baird was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1847, but as an adult, he moved to Paris to perfect his painting technique. In Paris, Baird studied under Adolphe Yvan, and exhibited extensively at the Paris Salon from 1872 until 1899.

Baird was a painter of farm animals, rural subjects, and small animals. In 1872, he exhibited in a formal gallery in Paris, and was represented there through 1899, during which time the gallery became the Salon des Artistes Franais in 1881. Baird worked in various parts of France, in Paris, and Switzerland.

In his painting of the countryside of Paris, Barbizon, Brittany and Lake Geneva, he primarily focused on local rural scenes and farmyard animals such as cows, chicks, hens and rabbits.

Baird was a member of the National Academy of Design, exhibiting there from 1875 to 1879, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1878, 1882, and 1883. Examples of his work include: Hen and Chicks, and Cows Grazing by a Mill (oil on canvas).

He is listed in: Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, and Graveurs and: Falk, Who Was Who in American Art.