Barker served in the British Army from 1942 to 1945. In 1948 he married the writer Ilse Gross (1921–2006), who wrote under the pen nameKathrine Talbot. They had one son, Thomas (born 1962).[6] Barker lived in Cornwall from 1947 to 1948, where he and Ilse were involved with the artists' colony in St Ives.[7]
From 1953 Barker lived on Bexley hill, Sussex[7] and travelled extensively in Europe and the US. He died in West Sussex in 1988.
Career
Barker was a self-taught artist. His influences included the surrealists – he exhibited some surrealist paintings.
His work is found in private collections in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Italy, South Africa, Sweden, the United States and Germany.
Barker had regular one man exhibitions throughout the 1960s and 1970s at: The David Paul Gallery, Chichester, Sussex; Reid Gallery, Guildford, Surrey and Century Galleries, Henley on Thames.
^Encyclopaedia of British Writers, From 1800 to the Present, second edition, 20th Century and Beyond, ed. George Stade et al, DWJ Books LLC, 2009, p. 35
^Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman, 1929-1937, ed. Elizabeth Podnieks, University of Delaware Press, 2012, p. 252
St Ives 1939-64 Twenty Five Years Of Painting, Sculpture And Pottery, Tate Gallery Publications, 1985 ISBN0-946590-20-6.
Kit Barker, Cornwall 1947-1948 Recollections Of Painters And Writers, Kathrine Talbot, The Book Gallery, 1993 ISBN1-897986-02-5 (Kathrine Talbot was the pen name of Barker's wife, Ilse.)
