Self Portrait
The son of a wealthy biscuit manufacturer (the family business was Peek Frean's), Carr began painting in his spare time before taking formal tuition at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. A fellow pupil was Lucian Freud (b.1922). Carr worked chiefly in isolation. His paintings of the 1950s and '60s were heavily influenced by Scottish artists like Robert Colquhoun (1914-1962), who is also represented in the Ferens' collection. Carr's works of the 1940s are more eccentric and individualistic in style. His close friend, the artist L.S. Lowry (1887-1976), encouraged him to look for eccentric human types as his subject matter and to paint 'queer' pictures. This self-portrait is a characteristic and major work of the artist's best period. There is a strong hint of surrealism in the dream-like proportions and still life objects. This surreal quality is further heightened by the way the figure is inexplicably cut off beneath the table.
