William Gerard Barry

William Gerard Barry (1864 in Ballyadam, Carrigtwohill – 9 September 1941) was an Irish painter.

Life and family

The son of a magistrate, Patrick Barry, William Gerard Barry was born in Ballyadam, Carrigtwohill, County Cork. He was one of 7 children. His mother was Pauline Roche. He moved to Paris, where he was awarded the Humanité medal in 1886 when he jumped into the Seine to rescue a man and boy who were drowning. He returned to Ireland from Paris in 1887, when he became estranged from his father, After this, Barry rarely returned to Ireland. He emigrated to Montreal, Canada, working as a deckhand to fund his ticket and later moved to the United States.

His initial success came in 1887 when he received a £30 Taylor prize after sending a painting to the Royal Dublin Society from Étaples with his painting called "Abandoned". When he first arrived in Canada, he worked as a sign-painter and horse-breaker on a ranch before moving to the United States. By 1913, he was well established as a portrait painter, and in 1926 his address was listed as New York.

According to the Crawford Art Gallery, very little of Barry's work survives, In 2007, there were only ten known works by Barry.