The Millinery Works Art Gallery

Past Art Exhibitions

Roderick Barrett 1920 - 2000

Anyone who had the privilege of knowing Roderic Barrett will be astonished to learn that, on our first meeting, I did not notice him.  The conditions, of course, were far from ideal: we met under glaring lights, a television camera was recording every movement and a sound recorder every sound.  But I did not notice these things either.  My whole attention – and this again you will understand – was held by his work, which I had not seen before.  Such work!  I am inexpressibly grateful for the Exhibition and its fine accompanying book that enable me once more to grapple with its mysterious complexity.  I had never encountered art of such loneliness, sadness, strength and yet such certain hope.  (Why did he paint these things unless he knew, at some unconscious level, that there was meaning that is humanly inaccessible?)  When finally, I got my breath back and turned to the artist dourly beside me, I found a unique concordance of spirit between what Roderic painted and what Roderic was.

I cannot remember if I used the words above when I began to speak to him about his work, as the programme required, but I do remember that I had only to use a description for Roderic to deny it.  I am told that the interview was extremely funny, especially as we were both quite oblivious of humour, and intent only on having our say.  His say was naturally more authoritative than mine, but I think he would have contradicted me on principle, not to be awkward but to remain private.  I came to love his letters, that always left me both enlightened and querying. 

His short treatise on the art of painting (The Artist at Work) seemed to me a luminous thing, and artists who have seen it agree, but the publishers to whom I recommended it could not see its virtues. And ‘virtues’ is, I am sure, the right word.  Roderic was a man of profound integrity, and it is what so distinguished his beautiful, dramatic and haunting work.  I wish he were here to contradict me!  When I think back (though I can imagine Roderic’s reaction) I feel the word for what he was and what he created is ‘noble’

Sister Wendy Beckett 2003

Above Curtain Call

THE MILLINERY WORKS - SEPTEMBER 8 - 26 2004

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