Margaret Carter Baumgaertner's notable commissions have included governors, congressmen, chief executive officers, actors, physicians and families.

Winner of the Best of Show in the Portrait Society of America 2000 Portrait competition, she is now a faculty member and demonstrator at the Portrait Society of America Portrait conferences. Her portrait of "Clare" was selected for the cover and inclusion in the book, The Best of Portrait Painting, published by North Light Books. 

Margaret Carter Baumgaertner majored in medical illustration and microbiology, and worked eight years as a freelance medical illustrator before beginning her career in portraiture.  She has studied at Atelier Lack in Minnesota, and the Cape Cod School of Art in Massachusetts, as well as with Cedric Egeli, John Howard Sanden, and Richard Whitney.

Baumgaertner strongly supports the tradition of portraiture and takes inspiration from the many American (Sargent), European (Romney) and Russian (Kromskoy) Masters. "Fine portraiture", she believes, "transcends contemporary elements and projects a timeless quality".

She has produced seven DVD series; Painting the Head in Oil:
A Portrait of Megan (9 DVDs), Painting the Corporate Portrait 
(7 DVDs) and Painting the Ala Prima Portrait (5 DVDs), Drawing the Head in Sauce (1 DVD), Painting the Plein Air Portrait
(5 DVDs), Painting the Head in Charcoal (4 DVDs) and her latest, A Child's Portrait in Oil, Painting from the Photograph (5 DVDs).

Baumgaertner teaches workshops in charcoal, sauce and oil portraiture, and her paintings hang in public and private collections in the United States, Europe, Mexico and Russia.