His father Frank Baer was a business executive for the British Metal Corporation; he was a German Jew who had immigrated to England as a young adult.
[1] During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Air Force, in Normandy (including D-Day) and the South Pacific.
[2] After the War, his father arranged an apprenticeship, in return for an investment, with the art dealer Max de Beer.
However, he did establish friendships with the lawyer Arnold Goodman, Delves Molesworth, who worked at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Hungarian art dealer, Max Hevesi.
[1][2] Baer chose to be in New York City on 1 January 1955, the very day that foreign exchange controls were removed, and quickly acquired 35 works by out-of-favour 19th-century French artists including Corot, Millet and Rousseau, for a mere £10,000.