

Roderic Barrett
was one of the most distinctive artists working
in Britain in the twentieth century whose importance
has yet to be appreciated. He is the opposite
of the commercial painter of pretty pictures
that fill a gap in the sitting room wall and
convey their message in a glance. The Greeks
had a saying that “The beautiful things are
difficult”. Barrett’s pictures are
difficult for anyone seeking easy interpretation,
but their reward can be powerful memories.
The human condition is Barrett’s
subject and his view of it is often bleak and
melancholic. For a man of his gentle nature,
a socialist, pacifist and conscientious objector
who experienced the horrors of World War II London
bombing as a volunteer helper, this is not surprising.
It left him with impressions, including a scepticism
about organised religion, that fed into his images.
The shadow of the nuclear bomb, the Vietnam war
and the ups and downs of domestic life also strongly
influenced his pictures. These are peppered over
the years with a huge range of personal motifs:
bicycles, blankets, buckets, candles, clowns,
coffee pots, jugs, ladders, mothers and children
and skulls are just a few of them.
How can they be interpreted?
Should we even attempt to do so? Knowing a bit
about Roderic’s nature,
his upbringing and life in the country plus his
frequent necessary visits to London to teach, I
suspect it is not difficult to divine the meaning
of the painting City Road, its diminutive figures
beset by aggressive and apparently conflicting
directional road signs. Similarly, in Candles for
Dead Friends, it seems not unreasonable to assume
that the differentsized candles represent those
he had known who had died young or old. Hugh Barrett,
who was latterly very close to his brother, told
me that he believed that Roderic’s chairs
represented people, upset chairs an argument.
Although Roderic’s symbols had a profound
significance for him, he was always reluctant to
put into words what these objects or a particular
picture meant. Those closest to him give us a few
clues. His daughter Kristin recalls that “He
did like order in his life”. His son Mark
emphasises that Roderic was primarily concerned
with the painting itself, with design, form and
balance. And Roderic’s widow Lorna says that
although objects could be “very meaningful
to him”, they were at times “quite
accidental. He just wanted a dot here or a bit
of something there”. Hugh remembered that
Roderic “always said he didn’t embark
upon a painting until he had at least two years
thinking about it”, so getting the form right
was crucial.
Roderic’s friend, the art historian, the
late Thomas Puttfarken, insisted that while Roderic
had admired the abstraction of the Dutch painter
Piet Mondrian, his own work was “decidly
not abstract”, that “there was never
such a thing as mere formalism” underlying
it. Visiting the artist after several weeks, Puttfaken “noticed
that the figure of a little girl had been moved
several inches closer to the left hand border.
His explanation for this was simple. ‘I looked
at her for some time and thought that she didn’t
want to be there.’ For him the “formal’ positioning
of each figure and object in an overall whole was
decisively dependent upon their emotional demands
within their pictorial content.”
In her book The Day of Reckoning,
Mary Clive recalls how about 100 years ago every
summer’s Royal
Academy Summer Exhibition would include “a
problem picture. Crowds stood in front of it, speculating
on the meaning.” It is to be hoped that crowds
will speculate on the meaning of Roderic’s
pictures in this exhibition. Whatever their conclusions,
they will be enriched by the experience.
David Buckman
Chappel Galleries, Essex are very pleased to be instrumental in organising this exhibition.
RODERIC BARRETT 1920-2000 26th July – 7 December 2008, Cartwright Hall, Lister Park, Bradford BD4 9NS
Telephone 01274 431212 www.bradfordmuseums.org
Exhibition open to the public between the following hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm, Sunday 1pm to 5pm.Closed Monday except Bank Holidays