Laura Barr

Identity:

Laura Barr (or Laura Charlotte Barr) was the daughter of the Canadian-born Eva Bennett (1855-1885) and the Scottish artisan, teacher and journalist Robert Barr (1849-1912). The 1891 UK census says Laura was born in the USA. About 1900 she married a mining engineer, Harvey Dodd (1875-1926), possibly in Madras, India. Passenger lists record the much travelled Laura Charlotte Barr travelling to and from Argentina between 1914 and 1921 and back from New Zealand in 1924, when their address is given as Furderside, Woldingham, Surrey. By 1936 she was settled in Kensington. She died in Essex in 1949.

Life:

Whistler painted a portrait of Laura's father in 1894/95, Portrait of Robert Barr y428). One day Robert Barr brought his daughter, a 'dainty child with... wonderful hair' according to the Academy, to the studio with him and Whistler, taken with her, asked if he might paint her portrait. This being agreed upon, Eva Barr accompanied her daughter to her daily sittings. The Academy recorded that the resulting portrait, Portrait of Miss Laura Barr y429, was spoken of by Whistler as 'one which should add greatly to his reputation and those of his intimates who had seen the picture in the making were of one mind as to its value'. Sickert recalled that the portrait was painted at his studio at 13 Robert Street, suggesting a date of between December 1894 and March 1895, and that he made a pencil drawing of Laura whilst Whistler was painting her. The drawing was acquired by the Barr family.

Bibliography:

Academy, London, 10 October 1903, p. 390; Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, Sickert, W., 'Where Paul and I Differ', Art News, no. 14, 10 February 1910, p. 113; Sickert, W., 'L'Affaire Greaves', New Age, 15 June 1911, pp. 159-60; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980; 'Laura Barr', Ancestry.co.uk