Roger Barr


Born in 1921 in Milwaukee, Barr studied and taught art in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Los Angeles, Paris, San Francisco, Hayward and Santa Rosa. He was a flier in the Navy during World War II and spent part of the war as flight deck officer on the USS Fanshaw Bay. After the war, he studied art in Los Angeles and then in Paris, where he lived and worked on the east bank of the Seine and moved in the same circles with Pablo Picasso and photographer Man Ray. He was director of the American Art Study Abroad in Paris from 1959-69. He was also a professor at American College in Paris in the early 1960s. Barr says he had been criticized by his fellow artists in New York for wishing to leave for Paris. "They accused me of escaping from the sinking ship," he said. Roger moved from San Francisco in about 1970 leaving behind a girlfriend who had been my girlfriend when she was in Madison, WI in 1958! Roger was a consummate artist who interests and talents range from painting and drawing to sculpture--it was sculpture that consumed him for most of the last part of his life. He worked in difficult media: stainless steel and repoussed brass, the effect from the noise of work leading to his severe deafness. Carole Quandt, his daughter-in-law says of Barr: "Barr had a larger-than-life presence when he walked into a room. He was the kind of artist that you only read about, but he was the real thing, He told stories about a period of life that no one will ever see again. I wish I had written some of them down" A brittle diabetic and subject to wild mood swings, his last work in reaction to the death of his wife was a group of over one hundrd huge moody drawings all of which I now own and which are for sale. Barr died in 2000 of complications of diabetes in La Quimnta, CA.
 
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, reclining nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, group of nudes, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, reclining nude, 1995
 




Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, abstract nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, face, 1995
 




Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, reclining nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled: nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 




Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995
 

Roger Barr: Drawing, untitled, nude, 1995