(1824 - 1904)
Painter and draftsman John Joseph Barker was the son of painter Thomas Barker of Bath (1767-1847) and brother of artists Benjamin and Thomas Jones Barker. John was instructed in drawing and painting by his father. At 18 he fell out with his brother Benjamin over Mary Anne Rand, whom he married in 1845. He became a prolific painter of sentimental and landscape works, remaining in Bath but exhibiting at the Royal Academy and British Institution, both in London. After the death of his first wife he married two more times and had numerous children. As his faculties failed him, he fell into poverty and, aged 80, was elected an out-pensioner by the Board of Bath Municipal Charities, having ‘lost the use of his limbs’. He died the same year.
