Description

This is a large, excellent example of 1950s abstract expressionism by an acclaimed artist and teacher from the period. This is a great piece to showcase in a dining room or in a living room above a couch .  It is ethereal and other-worldly, just lovely to stare at.  All. Day. Long.

Details

• Walter William Barker (German/American, 1921-2004)
• Untitled (1954)
  
• Oil on canvas
  
• Signed and dated in upper right hand corner
  
• 34" x 47" (overall, in recent gold tone wooden frame) 33 1/2 " x 36 1/2" (sight)
• Professionally cleaned and varnished. Slight stretcher bar marks.
  

About the Artist

Walter William Barker was born in Coblenz, Germany in 1921 and grew up in Webster Grove, Missouri. During World War II he served as a sergeant in the Corps of Military Police in the U.S. Army, earning three battle stars for the battles of Britain, Normandy and Northern France. At Washington University in St. Louis, he studied painting with Max Beckmann and Philip Guston and received his BFA in 1948. He earned an MFA from Indiana University and also studied at the University of Iowa and the University of North Carolina- Greensboro. Besides an accomplished artist, he was equally revered as a beloved teacher, guide and friend to generations of students. His first teaching position was at Salem College in 1949. He taught at Washington University from 1950 to 1962 and at the Brooklyn Museum School from 1962 to 1966, then moved to UNC-Greensboro to join the art faculty, where he was a professor until his retirement in 1992. He continued to teach as Professor Emeritus through 1999, giving talks devoted to his life, work, and growth as an artist, and conducting graduate studio visits and critiques. 

Barker’s work spanned a long and distinguished career and his open-minded approach to art-making led him to explore a wide spectrum of styles from Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s, to Pop Art and Asian -influenced work in the 1960s, and, in his later years, to more narrative works that explored his youth. His paintings express a strong emotional content marked by his sensitive draftsmanship. "I am a Zen monk at heart," he said in an interview. "I like simple, uncluttered things and I want my paintings to reflect that." 

His work is represented in the permanent collections of the City Art Museum of St. Louis, the Museum of Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Los Angeles County Art Museum and the Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC-Greensboro.  He passed away in 2004.