Barry James

Barry, James, was born at Cork in 1741, and received an ordinary middle-class education, early showing an aptitude for painting. Edmund Burke noticed his efforts, and enabled him to go abroad. Coming home, he painted a number of classical compositions, and The Death of General Wolfe. In 1777 he undertook to decorate the hall of the Society of Arts with the six paintings which are his chief memorials. In 1782 he was appointed professor of painting at the Royal Academy, but though his lectures were by no means deficient in common sense, he contrived to quarrel with his brother academicians, and was expelled in 1799. He was now in great poverty, and a subscription was opened for his benefit, but he died in 1806, almost as soon as he was freed from immediate difficulties.