Fred Barnard (1846 - 1896)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Victorian English illustrator, caricaturist and genre painter. He is noted for his work on the novels of Charles Dickens published between 1871 and 1879 by Chapman and Hall.

He studied art under Léon Bonnat in Paris, and worked in London and at Cullercoats on the Northumberland coast. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts. He also worked as an illustrator for Punch, The Illustrated London News, and Harper’s Weekly.

In 1870 Barnard married Alice Faraday, a niece of Michael Faraday.

In 1871 Barnard was commissioned by Chapman and Hall to illustrate nine volumes of the Household Edition of Dickens’ work. It included Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Sketches by Boz, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, Dombey and Son and Martin Chuzzlewit. He followed in the footsteps of the respected illustrator Hablot Knight Browne who had worked with Dickens himself. Barnard created some 450 illustrations over an eight-year period, and became known as “the Charles Dickens among black-and-white artists.”