Biography

Barry Pittar RBA was an accomplished watercolourist, architect, designer and ceramicist in London and Hertfordshire in the first half of the 20th century. Born in Kent in 1878, Pittar moved to London in the late years of the 19th century to study art at the Royal College of Art and St Johns Wood School, and for a brief period in Paris. Luck struck him quite early, and in 1895 he was appointed as Chief Architectural Artist for the Royal Doulton ceramic factory in Lambeth, where he worked until 1905. Thereafter, Pittar set up a studio in London and was successful for a number of years, exhibiting often at the Fine Art Society, the Royal Society of British Artists, and the Royal Scottish Academy. Around the time he was awarded his RBA (1919-20), Pittar moved to Hogarth Studio, in an artist's colony in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where he set up a small pottery business. During the 1920s and 30s, Barry and his wife Edith produced a number of well known ceramic models of animals, including rabbits, dogs, seals and polar bears. Pittar also flourished in design work during this period—a draft of a GWR poster for the 'Cornish Riviera' still survives by his hand from around 1925. His works can be found in the V&A, the National Railway Museum, and the Ashmolean Museum of Art in Oxford.