Henry Marvell Carr was born in Leeds on 16 August 1884. His parents were Matthew Marvell Carr and Clara Martha Carr. Henry was educated at Leeds Modern School, progressing to the Leeds School of Art, later moving to London to train under William Rothenstein at the RCA. His early career was interrupted by the Great War, during which, he served in France with the Royal Artillery. From 1921 until his death in 1970, Carr exhibited regularly at both the Royal Academy and the Paris Salon. He produced a considerable body of portraiture. His sitters included Aldous Huxley, General Dwight D Eisenhower and the novelist Olivia Davis. His painting Miss H Dearlove, a Crittalls Employee (1927) portrayed a telephonist manning a ‘dolls-eye’ switchboard and is owned by Braintree District Council. Carr painted London scenes throughout the blackout, including such public spaces as St Clement Danes, St Pancras Station, and the London Underground. Three of his paintings in oils from that period may be found in the collection of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. These are: The Merchant Navy: The chain-locker which depicted two sailors guiding a ship’s anchor chain as it comes down from above. Before leaving for the Middle East as an official war artist, Carr took a trip on a Merchant Navy ship. He was passionately concerned that the everyday toil of servicemen and women should be recorded as part of the war artists’ scheme, believing it to be of great public interest. Incendiaries in a Suburb (1941) depicted a street ablaze in the Blitz, with its attendant chaos. The sense of urgency is heightened by Carr’s rapid brush strokes and scratching of the paint surface. His A Bofors Gun, Algiers portrayed a gun at the entrance to the port of Algiers, with its crew in place. The first exhibition of war paintings at the National Gallery in London in July 1940 elicited complaints from Carr that there were too many machines and not enough people, either portraits or troops in action. Ironically, this painting highlights the tension of describing mechanised warfare, for it is the gun that dominates the painting, with the soldiers reduced to being mere attendants. Carr later worked as a war artist with the 1st Army in North Africa and Italy in the period 1942-45. He combined records of battles with studies of soldiers, and casualties. In the naval barracks at Naples in 1944, he painted the portrait An Ordinary Telegraphist, Maurice Alan Easton (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich). Easton was a former railway booking clerk from Oxfordshire turned naval telegraphist. Carr attempted to impart a symbolic significance to the young ‘hostilities-only’ rating, using fluid paint and a heroic stance. The composition took the form of a head-and-shoulders portrait of the sailor with his arms folded facing right. He wears a seaman’s uniform and a naval cap with an anonymous ‘HMS’ tally band, a wartime precaution to prevent enemy intelligence services knowing precise ship movements. On his right arm, he wears the radio communicator’s badge. When Carr came to exhibit the work after the war, he entitled it simply The Sailor. Carr’s Merchant Service Fireman (1942) may also be found in the collection at Greenwich. He also produced works detailing the war effort on the home front. His painting Ten Minutes Break in the Snow (1942) was last seen at the School of Infantry, Warminster and is apparently one of those approximately 50 works of art calculated to have ‘disappeared’ from the British Government Art Collection over the years. His Soldier Cleaning His Rifle may be found in the collection of Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Carr’s three quarter length portrait of Sir John Cockram, Chairman of the County Council (1962-1965) may be found in the collection of Hertfordshire County Council. In 1952 Carr produced the treatise Portrait Painting. He was appointed Fellow of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1948 and was awarded a gold medal at the 1956 Paris Salon. He was elected ARA in 1957 and RA in 1966. His Diploma Work was his Portrait of Mrs Henry Carr, 1961. Carr was also a Member Royal Society of British Artists and Associate of the Royal College of Art. Carr died at his home in South Kensington, London on 16 March 1970. A considerable body of his work may be found in the British Government Art Collection. His paintings Dover (1923), Eastbourne (1923) and Near Gravesend, Kent (1923) may all be found in the collection of Manchester Art Gallery.