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George Barret Sr. (c. 1730 – 29 May 1784) was an Irish landscape artist who is best known for his Oil paintings, but also sometimes produced watercolours. He left Ireland in 1762 to establish himself as an artist in London and rapidly gained recognition as a leading artist of the period. He exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain and was able to gain patronage from many leading art collectors. Barrett with other leading members left  the Society in 1768 to found the Royal Academy, where he continued to exhibit until 1782. Barrett appears to have travelled extensively in England including the Lake District and the Isle of Wight, Wales, and Scotland to undertake commissions for his patrons, but he does not appear to have travelled abroad. Oil paintings of Tivoli in Italy have been attributed to him, but it is much more likely that they are the work of his son George Barret Jr.George Barrett junior.  Barret suffered from asthma and this caused him to move in 1772 to Westbourne Green, at the time a country village to the west of Paddington. While he earned considerable quantities of money from his paintings, he has been described as being ‘‘feckless’’ with money. He was helped in 1782 by Edmund Burke, with whom he had become friends when Burke attended Trinity College, Dublin. On Burke's recommendation  he  obtained  the appointment of  master painter of Chelsea Hospital, a post he held until his death in 1784. At the time of his death his widow and children we left destitute, but the Royal Academy granted her a pension of thirty pounds a year.

Early Life in Ireland
Barrett, George Sr.- View of Windermere Lake, Early Morning (1781).jpg, the son of a cloth merchant, some time between 1728 and 1732, Barret began his career apprenticed to a staymaker. He taught drawing after completing his studies at the Royal Dublin Society.

Move to London in 1762 and Patrons
Later moving to England, he became a successful painter, particularly of wild and mountainous natural landscapes; of the 31 paintings he showed at the Royal Academy in 1769–1782, more than a third depicted such scenery.

Viscount Ullswater
Lowther Park and views of the Lake District

Duke of Portland
Views of the Park at Welbeck Abbey. The Greendale Oak, by George Barret 1765-6 Commissioned by the 3rd Duke of Portland who paid £42 guineas for the painting. The arch in the trunck was cut by the second Duke of Portland. The tree lasted into the 20th century by which time it was probably a 1000 years old.

Seven Sisters Oak 1765-6

William Constable
Views of Burton Constable Yorkshire.

Duke of Bacleuch
Melrose Abbey

Sir Peter Leiceter
Views of Beeston Castle

William Lock
Decorated room at Norbury Park

Sir George Colebrook
House at Gatton

Lord Albermarle and Lord Lansdowne

George Barret and Richard Wilson
Landscape paintings in oil by Barret and Richard Wilson (painter) can be very similar and in some instances, such as their views of Llyn Peris and Snowdon from the Llyn Nantle are taken from identical viewpoints. Wilson was born in 1714 was older than Barret by about sixteen years and died two years before Barrett. W. G. Constable in his study of Wilson maintained that it is comparatively easy to tell the work of Wilson and Barret apart, noting that ‘‘The comparatively free and fluid handling of Barret’s early work and the conventions used in details, notably trees, effectively distinguish it from that of Wilson........ Barret uses brighter greens and yellows than Wilson (hence Wilson’s description of Barret’s paintings as ‘eggs and spinach’), and sometimes introduces touches of reds and blues; his forms are less firmly defined; the lights are more scattered and emphasised; and the paint is smoother.’’. Wilson certainly borrowed ideas from Barret, as can be seen in the depiction of       waterfall which copies Barret’s view of the fall at Powerscourt. Wilson appears to have started his series of Welsh views around 1765, at a time when the Wales was starting to become popular with tourists and the earliest guide books were being published. Solkin makes the point that Wison’s clients were mainly the Welsh gentry, but another patron of Wilson was Sir Peter Leicester, who between 1761 and 1769 was having Tabley House, near Knutsford built. Sir Peter Leicester furnished Tabley with a number of notable paintings by Wilson, but also by Barret, and the view of Beeston Castle, now in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester may have been amoungst these painting. This may be link between the two series of North Welsh painting by Wilson and Barrett.

Family
He married Frances Percy in 1757; four of their children (George, James, Joseph and Mary) also became painters. Only George (1767–1842) achieved particular notability, as an early member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, where he exhibited prolifically. George Barrett Senior died in Paddington in west London.

Barret To-day
In the 19th century Barret’s work faded into obscurity and it became the practice to ascribe many landscapes, often by minor artists to Barrett. In 1920 Thomas Bodkin Director of the National Gallery of Ireland wrote an impassioned plea that greater  prominence should be given to Barret’swork However at that time Barrett was largely unrepresented in Museum and Art Gallery Collections in the  British Isles. However, since the 2nd World War a considerable number of Barrets have enterered public collections and the Barrets at Burton Constable are now available for public view. In 2016 the Portland Gallery at Welbeck Abbey was opened at Welbeck, displaying the Duke of Portland’s notable collection of Barretts. On the art market the auction record for a work by George Barret, Senior, was set in 2005, when painting, Wooded Landscape with Fishermen Hauling In Their Nets, was sold at Christie's, London, for £512,000. This has created a much wider appreciation of Barret’s work, but as yet, unlike othermajor artists of the period no detailed discussion and ‘‘catalogue raissonie’’ of his work has been published.

Literature

 * Bodkin T. (1920) Four Irish Landscape Painters: Geoge Barrett R.A. ……., Irish Academic Press, 2nd ed. 1987. ISBN 0716524058
 * Constable W. G., (1953), Richard Wilson, Englsh Master Painters, R&KP, London (Contains a biography of Barrett pp.144-5)
 * W. C. Monkhouse, "Barret, George (1732?–1784)", rev. Anne Crookshank, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 12 June 2007
 * Wynne, Michael. Reflections on "Art and Oratory", Éire-Ireland, 5, 2 (Summer 1970), pp. 95–102.
 * Ramm, John. 'Apostle of Light' (Principally about Barret Jnr.), 'Antique Dealer & Collectors Guide', October 2000, Volume54, No.3.