A talented landscape
artist and figurative painter, Tom Carr was born in County Antrim,
Northern Ireland
and encouraged to sketch by his watercolourist grandfather. In 1929 he attended
the Slade School of Fine Art, London,
where he studied drawing
and painting
under Henry Tonks and Wilson Steer. After two years study, Tom Carr travelled
to Florence for
six months, staying at the home of the artist Aubrey Waterfield (1874-1944).
Returning to London, he slowly built a reputation as a
draughtsman and artist, exhibiting at several galleries. He painted watercolours
as well as oil
painting. Carr
returned to Ulster just
before the war and worked as an official war artist. However, the landscape of Northern Ireland
became his principal subject, in both oils and watercolours. He taught art in a private school
and later figure-drawing
at the Belfast College of Art. Painting children became of his specialities.
Following his wife's death in 1995, he moved to Norfolk where he focused on landscape
painting of the local scenery. He was honoured with an MBE in 1974 for services
to art in Ulster
and became OBE in 1993. Tom Carr was a member of the Royal Society of
Watercolour Painters and the Watercolour
Society of Ireland. He was also a member of the Royal
Ulster Academy of Arts.
