Harry Becker
1865-1928
Harry Becker’s great passion was to paint the working life of rural Suffolk. In particular he captured farm workers performing their daily tasks, ploughing, ditching, hoeing and leading horses. His paintings stand as reminders of a time lost and the age-old agricultural methods that were already dwindling when Becker caught them on canvas at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Becker was formally trained and had experience working in London and on the Continent. Like other impressionists of the period, he stated his aim as being able to capture ‘the true light of day’. But his true love was always to paint the rural life of his native Suffolk. He painted mainly in oils and watercolour but also worked in pencil and made etchings.
"Harry Becker never saw anybody but the men of the fields. He was with them day-by-day, summer and winter. He suffered chronically with Asthma. He froze; he burned but he painted. Those men loved him. He could talk with equal enthusiasm about the mud or about God” – Adrian Bell, 1945.