George Barret Sr.

View of Windermere Lake, Early Morning, 1781 – Canvas, National Gallery of Victoria, Felton Bequest.

George Barret Sr. RA (c. 1730 – 29 May 1784) was an Irish landscape artist best known for his portraits of the British countryside during the mid to late 18th century. He was a founding member of London's Royal Academy.

Life

Born in Dublin, 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. 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.

His patrons included Edmund Burke, with whom he had become friends while the latter attended Trinity College, Dublin. In his later years he suffered financial difficulties, but was helped by a recommendation by Burke in obtaining an appointment as master painter of Chelsea Hospital, a post he held until his death in 1784.

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

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Further reading

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