Gordon Barrick
The Artist and His Work
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The following is an excerpt of December, 1920 Plain Dealer review of Gordon Barrick's first private exhibition at the Cleveland School of Art, now the Cleveland Institute of Art.
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Opening with a private view and reception at the School of Art yesterday afternoon, the exhibition of oils by Gordon Barrick is bound to attract many visitors during the next ten days.
Most of the paintings are the fruit of three months' work in New England last summer, and vary from glimpses of brown carpeted pine words and country hillsides and meadows to surf-hidden rocks in deep blue water and bright hued fishing boats at rest in Gloucester harbor.
A few of the pictures are Ohio landscapes, rivaling the New England pictures in quiet charm, a burst of sunshine in one view of Rocky River valley producing an especially lovely effect.
There is evidence in plenty that the artist is as much at home in summer fields as he is in the snows of winter.
He is a strong and sure draftsman, all the way from boats and trees, hills and green hillsides, all flooded with light and warmth.
There is much of the atmosphere and feeling of the real outdoors which is so painfully wanting in many canvasses done by painters of the so-called Hudson river school, who were much given to similar subjects.
That touch of real nature, of the actual breath of the wide open spaces far from the dwellings of men, marks Mr. Barrick's landscapes, whatever the season or the topography of the scene.
It is easily felt in his "Early Snow" which won the first prize for landscapes and the Penton medal in that class at the annual exhibition of the works of Cleveland Artists held at the Museum of Art, a year ago last June, as it is in the very different but equally sincere and convincing picture of summer called "A Sunlit Wood".
There is fine light in the reflection of the sky in "The Lily Pond" and in different ways the charm of "Rocky River Valley" and "Hilly Sheep Country,Connecticut" and the appeal of The Sea" and "The Sea At Anisquam" are equally potent.
"Feeding the Chickens", a delightfully sunny and homelike picture, has been shown at the Museum of Art, as have several of the admirable figure paintings in this exhibition.
Among those that many visitors to the museum will remember are "the Green Pierette", "Portrait of an Old Man" and "Sewing".
It has been an outstanding month at the School of Art.
And foremost in this period was the sterling exhibition by Gordon Barrick, an alumnus, which attracted many visitors.
Director Bailey took the Barrick Exhibit for the subject of his morning talk on Monday.
"What impresses one immediately is the sunlight in these pictures" said Mr. Bailey.
He called attention to the color harmony, good drawing, knowledge of anatomy, balance in composition, and the carefully chosen center of interest in individual paintings.