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Label - Exhibition: Romanian-born John Barber studied at the Ferrer Center School in New York, where he met faculty member Robert Henri and other Ash Can artists. The members of this group believed that art should reflect life truthfully, and this principle remained central to Barber’s work throughout his career. In 1922, Barber made one his many trips to France studying with André Lhote familiarizing himself with Cubism. Barber’s work of this period was greatly influenced by his teacher, but his close friend the expressionist painter Jules Pascin, whom he met in 1924, also made an impact. Two portraits of his father Frederick Barber, completed in 1922 and 1923, exemplify Barber’s movement away from a realist style and toward a more abstract one. The first is a frontal portrait with extensive attention given to the details of the sitter’s clothing and visage. In the second, shown here, his subject’s face has been reduced to a series of planes and angles. The folds of his clothing have been similarly rendered, defined primarily by tonal shifts. However, even with this reductive treatment, Barber does not stray far from his realist tendency; he seems to have captured his father in a thoughtful moment. (Highlights from the Collection: from Rodin to Warhol - April 2 -July 11, 2010)