Liverpool Town Hall by Moonlight

John Barter (around 1841 - 1906) began exhibiting at the Liverpool Academy in 1861. He later exhibited regularly in the annual Liverpool Autumn Exhibitions held at the Walker Art Gallery from 1871. This view of is of Liverpool Town Hall, looking up Dale Street towards the Cultural Quarter where the Walker stands today. A letter from Lucas Peter Stubbs, a Liverpool-based collector who presented the Walker with a watercolour by Barter, to the Curator of the Walker Art Gallery in 1912 recalled the following: 'John Barter was for many years a popular teacher of drawing and painting having a studio at Clayton Square, Liverpool...He was greatly esteamed of by his fellow artists and their appreciation of him caused him to be often referred to by their appropriately speaking of him as "honest John". He was one of the founders of the Liver Sketch club. He did much to popularise art and did much to improve amatuer artists.'