Howard Barron (1900–1991), artist, was born in Kent, England. He arrived in Sydney in 1924 where he trained with Sir Will Ashton. Barron quickly gained a name as an outstanding landscape painter, working in the Newcastle area, around the Hawkesbury, Murrumbidgee and Wollondilly rivers and near Armidale. A regular finalist in the Wynne Prize, by 1933 his Afternoon, Kangaroo Valley had been purchased by Sydney's National Gallery (the Art Gallery of New South Wales). Throughout the 1940s he became well known for his portraits and was a finalist in the Archibald Prize several times. After returning to England in the late 1940s, he was commissioned to paint portraits of prominent people including Sir Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth II. His portrait of Dame Nellie Melba hangs in Australia House, London. He returned to Australia in the late 1950s, where he lived until his death in 1991.
