Thomas James Carr (21 September 1909 – 17 February 1999) was an Irish artist who was associated with the

Euston Road School The Euston Road School is a term applied to a group of English painters, active either as staff or students at the School of Drawing and Painting in London between 1937 and 1939. The School opened in October 1937 at premises in Fitzroy Street bef ...

in the 1930s and had a long career as a painter of domestic scenes and landscapes.

Biography

Sketch for Making Coloured Parachutes (Art

Carr was born in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

to a well-to-do family and attended

Oundle School Oundle School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) for pupils 11–18 situated in the market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire, England. The school has been governed by the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City ...

where his art masters included

E.M.O'R. Dickey E. M. O'R. Dickey (1 July 1894 – 12 August 1977) was a wood engraver who was active at the beginning of the twentieth century. He was a founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers.Joanna Selborne, ‘The Society of Wood Engravers: the ear ...

and Christopher Perkins. In 1927 Carr moved to London where he studied at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. After two years at the Slade, Carr moved to Italy and spent a year in

Settignano Settignano is a ''frazione'' on a hillside northeast of Florence, Italy. The little '' borgo'' of Settignano carries a familiar name for having produced three sculptors of the Florentine Renaissance, Desiderio da Settignano and the Gamberini brother ...

near

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

. Upon returning to London, Carr established himself as a well-regarded painter of domestic scenes. Although essentially a realist painter, Carr was included in the 1934 ''Objective Abstractionists'' exhibition at Zwemmer's Gallery. In 1937, Carr shared an exhibition with

Victor Pasmore Edwin John Victor Pasmore, CH, CBE (3 December 190823 January 1998) was a British artist. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Pasmore was born in Chelsham, Surrey, on 3 December 1908. He ...

and Claude Rogers at the Storran Gallery and subsequently became associated with the representational style of the Euston Road school. Starting in 1940, at

Wildenstein Wildenstein is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Population See also * Communes of the Haut-Rhin department The following is a list of the 366 communes of the French department of Haut-Rhin. The ...

's gallery, Carr held a series of one-man exhibitions at various galleries including at the

Leicester Galleries Leicester Galleries was an art gallery located in London from 1902 to 1977 that held exhibitions of modern British, French and international artists' works. Its name was acquired in 1984 by Peter Nahum, who operates "Peter Nahum at the Leiceste ...

, the

Redfern Gallery The Redfern Gallery is an exhibition space in the West End of London specialising in contemporary British art. It was founded by Arthur Knyvett-Lee and Anthony Maxtone Graham in 1923 as an artists' cooperative on the top floor of Redfern H ...

and also at

Agnew's Thomas Agnew & Sons is a fine arts dealer in London that began life as part of in a print and publishing partnership with Vittore Zanetti in Manchester in 1817 which ended in 1835, when Agnew took full control of the company. The firm opened its Lo ...

. In 1939, Carr returned to Northern Ireland and settled in

Newcastle, County Down Newcastle () is a small seaside resort town in County Down, Northern Ireland, which had a population of 7,672 at the 2011 Census. It lies by the Irish Sea at the foot of Slieve Donard, the highest of the Mourne Mountains. Newcastle is known fo ...

where he spent the Second World War. During the War, Carr received a small number of commissions from the

War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artist ...

to depict parachute manufacture and the

Short Sunderland The Short S.25 Sunderland is a British flying boat patrol bomber, developed and constructed by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft took its service name from the town (latterly, city) and port of Sunderland in North East ...

flying-boats being built at the

Short Brothers Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...

factory in Belfast. After the War, Carr taught at the

Belfast College of Art The Belfast School of Art, is a School in thUlster University Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciencesand is physically located at the Belfast campus. Following the results of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 Ulster is ranked within ...

and moved to Belfast in 1955. After the death of his wife in 1995, Carr moved to Norfolk to be nearer one of his three daughters and her family. Carr continued to paint into old age, and tended to concentrate on landscape painting. A large retrospective exhibition of Carr's work was held in Belfast and then Dublin in 1985. Carr was a regular exhibitor at the

Royal Academy 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 pur ...

and was a member of the

Royal Ulster Academy The Royal Ulster Academy (RUA) has existed in one form or another since 1879. It started life then, as The Belfast Ramblers' Sketching Club drawn from the staff of Marcus Ward & Co who held their first show in Ward's Library on Botanic Avenue in 18 ...

, the

New English Art Club The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...

, the

Royal Watercolour Society The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wa ...

and was an honorary member of the

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the RIA, the academy retained the word "Royal" after most of Ireland became in ...

. Carr's work was among 49 artworks included in a selection of works from Ulster Artists hosted at the Leeds Playhouse Gallery in 1976. Queen's University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1991. For his services to art in Northern Ireland, Carr was awarded the

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

in 1974 and received an OBE in 1993.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Carr, Thomas James 1909 births 1999 deaths 20th-century British painters 20th-century male artists from Northern Ireland Academics of Ulster University Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Artists from Belfast British male painters British war artists Members of the Royal Ulster Academy Officers of the Order of the British Empire Painters from Northern Ireland People educated at Oundle School World War II artists 20th-century Irish male artists