James Barry (1741–1806)

James Barry was born on 11 October 1741 in Water Lane, now Seminary Road, Cork. His father, John Barry, a builder, innkeeper, and coasting vessel trader encouraged his son to join the family business, however the budding artist pursued a different course, teaching himself to draw by copying engravings, with some later instruction from the landscape painter John Butts.

When he was around twenty years old, Barry registered as a student at the Dublin Society Figure Drawing School, and in 1763, was awarded a premium for his painting The Baptism of the King of Cashel by St Patrick, one of the earliest recorded paintings of an Irish historical subject. An oil sketch for this painting is now in the Gallery's collection.

In 1764, Barry left Ireland for London, before travelling to France and Italy under the patronage of Edmund and William Burke. In 1773 he was elected a full member of the Royal Academy, having been made an associate the previous year, and in 1782 was appointed Professor of Painting. In 1777, Barry began to work on a series of six canvases for the Great Room at the headquarters of the Royal Society of Arts, London. This series is Barry’s most important work, and depict scenes from the progress of civilisation.

Following a period in which he became increasingly reclusive, and in which there was a decline of interest in his art, Barry died on 22 February 1806. His body lay in state at the Society of Arts, and later interred in the artists’ corner of St Paul’s Cathedral.