George Barker

George Barker (17 July 1844 – 27 November 1894) was a Canadian-American photographer best known for his photographs of Niagara Falls.

Life Barker was born in London, Canada West in 1844. He first studied landscape painting, switching to photography following a financial setback. He began his photography training with the Western-Canadian photographer James Egan. At the age of 18, he had opened his own studio in London. By the late 1860s, he had studios in both London and Niagara Falls, with the Niagara studio called Barker's Stereoscopic View Manufactory and Photograph Rooms, In 1866, he won a gold medal for landscape photography at the convention for the Photographers Association of America, held in Saint Louis. but his negatives survived.

Disasters In addition to his well-known landscape photographs, Barker traveled the United States, documenting natural disasters such as the Louisville Tornado of 1890 and the 1889 Johnstown flood. he was described as "the eminent photographer of Niagara Falls".

Collections Upon his death, his works were acquired by Underwood & Underwood of Washington, D.C. The J Paul Getty Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Galleries of Scotland, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Gallery