Kit Barker Explained

Kit Barker
Birth Date:1879
Birth Place:London, England
Death Date:1965
Occupation:British Army

Kit Barker (1916 - 1988) was a British painter.

Biography

Barker was born in London, England, to English father George Barker (1879–1965), a police constable and former Army batman, and Irish mother Marion Frances (1881–1953), née Taaffe, from Mornington, County Meath, near Drogheda, Ireland.[1] [2] [3] [4] His elder brother was the poet George Barker; they were raised at Battersea, London, and the family later lived at Upper Addison Gardens, Holland Park.[5]

Barker served in the British Army from 1942 to 1945. In 1948 he married the writer Ilse Gross (1921 - 2006), who wrote under the pen name Kathrine Talbot. They had one son, Thomas (born 1962).[6] Barker lived in Cornwall from 1947 to 1948, where he and Ilse were involved with the artists' colony in St Ives.[7]

In 1949 the Barkers travelled to the USA where Kit lectured at Skidmore College in New York. Kit later taught with Hassel Smith, Elmer Bischoff and David Park at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (1951 - 1952). During their time in the USA, the Barkers stayed at Yaddo artists' community in Saratoga Springs, New York.[7]

From 1953 Barker lived on Bexley hill, Sussex[7] and travelled extensively in Europe and the US. He died in West Sussex in 1988.

Career

Barker was a self-taught artist. His influences included the surrealists  - he exhibited some surrealist paintings.

His work is found in private collections in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Italy, South Africa, Sweden, the United States and Germany.

Public collections

Barkers works have been purchased by:

Major solo exhibitions

Barker had regular one man exhibitions throughout the 1960s and 1970s at: The David Paul Gallery, Chichester, Sussex; Reid Gallery, Guildford, Surrey and Century Galleries, Henley on Thames.

Major group exhibitions

Other reproduced works include

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. George Barker, Martha Fodaski, Twayne Publishers, 1969, p. 13
  2. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 978-0-19-861412-8. 10.1093/ref:odnb/49571. 2004.
  3. Web site: The cold heart of passion's thief.
  4. Encyclopaedia of British Writers, From 1800 to the Present, second edition, 20th Century and Beyond, ed. George Stade et al, DWJ Books LLC, 2009, p. 35
  5. Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman, 1929-1937, ed. Elizabeth Podnieks, University of Delaware Press, 2012, p. 252
  6. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article692136.ece Ilse Barker's obituary in the Times
  7. News: Oldham. Alison. Obituary: Ilse Barker. 16 May 2014. The Guardian. 3 June 2006.

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