Howard Barron 1900-1991. Portrait Of Katherine Merry Horstmann 1946. Oil On Canvas Framed.

Howard Barron. 
English/Australian ( b.1900 - d.1991 ).
Portrait of Katherine Joan Merry nee Horstmann b.1914 - d.1973. Director of Horstmann Gear Company of Bath, 1946.
Oil on Canvas.
Signed lower left.
Image size 23.2 inches x 19.3 inches ( 59cm x 49cm ).
Frame size 29.7 inches x 25.8 inches ( 75.5cm x 65.5cm ).

Available for sale from Big Sky Fine Art in the English county of Dorset, this original oil painting portrait is by Howard Barron and dates from 1946.
The painting is presented and supplied in a sympathetic frame (which is shown in these photographs). 
The painted surface has benefitted from cleaning and conservation, which took place on our instruction, supervision and approval.. 
This antique painting is in very good condition. It wants for nothing and is supplied ready to hang and display.
The painting is signed lower left.
Provenance: Loaned to and exhibited at The Museum of Bath at Work in the city of Bath from 2009 to 2019. Previously with FJ Harris & Son Pictures (Bath) Ltd, 13 & 14 Green Street, Bath in December 1969 for framing.

Howard Barron was an outstanding landscape and portrait painter. He was born in Kent but moved to Australia in 1924 where he quickly gained a reputation as one of a younger generation of Australian landscape painters. Throughout the 1940s he was prolific and successful, being a regular finalist in the Archibald Prize and an associate member of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales. Barron returned to England in the late 1940s and practiced widely as a portrait painter. In 1954 he won a silver medal at the Paris Salon and in 1965 he held his first solo exhibition in Britain at the Qantas Gallery. 

Barron lived for a time in Cornwall, where he was elected to membership of a number of art societies including the St. Ives Society of Artists and the International Institute of Art and Letters. He exhibited with the St. Ives Society and also at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Fine Art Society. He also lived in Copthorne, Sussex for some years before returning to Australia in the late 1950s, where he lived until his death in 1991.

Although he made his name as a landscape and marine artist Barron became well known for his portraits of prominent men and women. After the Second World War he was twice commissioned to paint portraits of Sir Winston Churchill and one three occasions he was commissioned to paint the Queen. His portrait of Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba for the main hall of Australia House in London attracted considerable publicity. His portrait of   Florence Austral, another famous Australian opera singer, was gifted to the National Portrait Gallery by the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, and is part of the gallery’s collections of twentieth century Australian divas. When four-year-old Monique Grobben of Weston, ACT, was named Miss Pears in 1978 part of her prize was a portrait of her by Howard Barron. He also painted the portraits of many business leaders and institutional heads, so it seems very fitting that he should have also painted Katherine Joan Merry (nee Horstmann).

Today the work of Howard Barron is widely represented in many UK and Australian collections, including the Imperial War Museum in Canberra, and in notable private collections. 

© Big Sky Fine Art

This commissioned portrait of Gustav Horstmann’s granddaughter, Katherine Joan Merry (nee Horstmann) b.1914 - d.1973 was performed by Howard Barron in 1946 when she held the office of Director of The Horstmann Gear Company Limited. The painting was hung in the company premises at the Newbridge Works in Bath, Somerset. She oversaw the transition from wartime production through a difficult hiatus to a major expansion in products and output for domestic and overseas markets in the 1950s.
She is shown from the head to the waist, in a composed and understated pose. She is a very pleasant looking middle-aged lady, with brown hair and brown eyes. She is wearing a pale green dress with matching jacket, with contrasting cream lapel and a simple classical silver coloured brooch. The composition is tastefully and carefully executed to produce a timeless portrait.

For a full biography of this artist please see his listing on www.bigskyfineart.com .

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