Colonel George C. Royce, VD – Eleventh Commanding Officer, 1920-1921. The original 1936(?) oil painting by Lieutenant (Robert) Allan Barr hangs in the Officers’ Mess.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Lieutenant (Robert) Allan Barr, 1890-1959 – Born in Chiswick, London, England, he studied at the London School of Art under Frank Brangwyn, John M. Swan, George W. Lambert, and William Nicholson (1907-11); at the Regent Street Polytechnic, Lond. (1908-10). During W.W. I he served in England and France with the British Army first as a cadet in the Artists’ Rifles and then as a Lieutenant with the 1st Monmouthshire Regiment.
He came to Kingston, Canada in 1922, then moved to Toronto in 1923. There he distinguished himself as a portrait painter who employed excellent craftsmanship and dramatic treatment of light and shadow. Some of his better known portraits include: Sir Charles G.D. Roberts (poet/writer); Lt.-Col. J. Keiller MacKay, D.S.O., K.C. (Justice, On. Supr. Court); Dr. Pelham Edgar (Prof. Vict. College, UT/ author/editor); Mrs. Alleyne Sutherland (port. in AGO). He was also known for his landscapes and still lifes. He taught at the Ontario College of Art (1943-44). He is represented in the following collections: NGC, Ott.; AEAC, Kingston, Ont.; AGO, Tor.; and elsewhere. Membership: ARCA (1928); OSA (1927-38); Ont. Inst. Painters (1958). Died in Toronto.
Dear QOR Museum,
I’m an art dealer based in London, UK – and have recently acquired a fascinating triptych of oil paintings by Allan Barr, depicting WWI battlefields that would seem to relate to his own wartime experiences in the trenches.
They are dated 1930 (and thus from his time as a Canadian artist) and I wondered whether they might have been intended for a regimental purpose -decoration of a mess etc – or perhaps as a War Memorial. I have found newspaper reports from a Toronto newspaper – The Star Weekly – dated 1930 but frustratingly it simply refers to his wartime record, rather than the reason why he was being interviewed abobut them in 1930?
Any help you may be able to provide would be most gratefully received,
With thanks fr your time
Andrew Sim
Sim Fine Art