Roderic Barrett (1920–2000) was a British painter from
Colchester
Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
Life
At fifteen years old, Roderic Barrett was accepted into the
Central School of Art and Design
The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and ...
in London.
He studied there until 1940, specializing in wood engraving under John Farleigh but also receiving tuition from William Roberts and
Bernard Meninsky
Bernard Meninsky (25 July 1891–12 February 1950) was a painter of figures and landscapes in oils, watercolour and gouache, a draughtsman and a teacher..
Biography Early life and education
Meninsky was born in Konotop, Ukraine, where his fathe ...
. Barrett gradually switched from engravings to oil paintings in his later life.
Barrett became a conscientious objector in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, and he returned to
Colchester
Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...
, and in 1947, began teaching part-time at the Central School. Barrett, a lifelong Socialist and pacifist, also objected to military service during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
.
After 21 years, he moved on to tutor at the
Royal Academy School
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
, where he remained until his retirement in 1996. Barrett was long associated with the
Colchester Art Society, succeeding
Cedric Morris
Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889 – 8 February 1982) was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portra ...
as its president, having been a founder member in 1946, along with
Henry Collins,
Lett Haines,
John Nash and
Cedric Morris
Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889 – 8 February 1982) was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portra ...
.
Works
From 1939 to 1940, Barrett began showing with the
Society of Wood Engravers
The Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) is a UK-based artists’ exhibiting society, formed in 1920, one of its founder-members being Eric Gill. It was originally restricted to artist-engravers printing with oil-based inks in a press, distinct from ...
. From 1946, he became a regular exhibitor with the Colchester Art Society. Cecil Keeling, one of his admirers, produced an article on art publication Motif, in the spring 1961 issue. Among the illustrations were Chairs and Men, Family of Chairs, Family Bike Ride, Ass and Man and Fallen Chair, some such engraved images over the years also appearing as oils. Barrett was given his first solo show in 1948 at The Hilton Gallery, Cambridge. The paintings, drawings and engravings included work on the Don Quixote theme.
During the remaining 40 years, Barrett’s pictures were included in a number of mixed exhibitions and solo shows. His first retrospective, at
The Minories, Colchester
The Minories is a Grade II listed building and gardens situated at the east end of High Street in Colchester, Essex, England, near Hollytrees, Gate House and Colchester Castle. It currently houses The Minories Galleries which are run by Colches ...
, in 1973, would be one of a series. He also became the long-serving president of the Colchester Art Society in 1982. Barrett’s pictures from 1970 were a frequent feature of the Summer Exhibition at the
Royal Academy. He had begun to teach part-time in the Academy Schools.
Since showing at the Beaux Arts gallery, London, in 1954, Barrett exhibited regularly, culminating in a show at the European parliament gallery, Strasbourg (1995), important retrospective exhibitions at the Barbican Centre and
The Minories, Colchester
The Minories is a Grade II listed building and gardens situated at the east end of High Street in Colchester, Essex, England, near Hollytrees, Gate House and Colchester Castle. It currently houses The Minories Galleries which are run by Colches ...
(1996) and the Bradford Museum (2008). From 1993 to 1998, he was a trustee of the Colchester and District Visual Arts Trust; and, in 1997, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the ancient arms attributed to the Kingdom of Es ...
.
Barrett was an outspoken defender of what he called ‘authentic’ art. He was a deeply moral artist and hard work and honesty were important to him.
His work is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum and many provincial galleries. Barrett’s work was well summed up by Puttfarken when he wrote, Roderic Barrett ‘… was a painter of great emotional, as well as formal, power, of rich symbolic suggestiveness and, above all, of deep humanity’.
Family
Barrett’s great-grandfather was a nonconformist radical and Chartist. His grandfather was a Liberal and Congregationalist. His father was also a Congregationalist and then a Quaker, a propagandist for the Labour Party and pacifist, an imprisoned conscientious objector during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. When Barrett was only 10, his mother died and it almost certainly contributed to his later melancholic predisposition.
He had three children, Jonathan, Kristin and Mark.
Comments
In the words of his biographer David Buckman, ‘Barrett was one of the most distinctive artists working in Britain in the twentieth century … he is the opposite of the commercial painter of pretty pictures that fill a gap in the sitting room wall and convey their message in a glance’. Or as his friend Thomas Puttfarken wrote ‘
arrett wasfundamentally resistant to, and suspicious of, the “isms” of modern and post-modern art since the 1960s, Roderic pursued his own way’.
Again, in Puttfarken’s view, ‘when Barrett switched from engravings to oils, he retained the mastery and precision of drawing associated with the former. In Barrett’s work, seemingly normal objects, such as chairs, tables, buckets and candles take on symbolic meanings, suggestions of myths, the subconscious, or of nightmares. What shines through the appearance of a domestic scene are the fears and anxieties, the slender hopes and the melancholia of the human condition’.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barrett, Roderic
1920 births
2000 deaths
20th-century British painters
British male painters
20th-century British male artists