Harley Granville-Barker

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Harley Granville-Barker

by George Bernard Shaw
platinum print, double exposure, 1904
6 1/8 in. x 4 3/8 in. (155 mm x 112 mm)
Purchased, 2004
Primary Collection
NPG P1039

Sitterback to top

  • Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946), Actor, producer, dramatist and critic. Sitter in 31 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 2 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Playwright. Artist or producer associated with 8 portraits, Sitter in 148 portraits.

This portraitback to top

In 1900 Barker became involved with the Stage Society, run by a group of enthusiasts which presented matinees and readings of unperformed plays. That year he began his formative friendship with Shaw when he played Marchbanks in Shaw's Candida for the society. Both men were members of the Fabian Society and shared the same challenging and idealist objectives. Later as Jack Tanner in Shaw's Man and Superman (1905) Barker made himself up to look like Shaw and he became much like his surrogate son. The reverse of this photograph has been inscribed by Shaw 'The Two-Headed Nightingale'.

Events of 1904back to top

Current affairs

Britain and France sign the Entente Cordiale, an agreement which resolves a number of longstanding colonial disputes (including a Declaration respecting Egypt and Morocco), signalling growing anxiety about the risk of future German aggression. Although not militarily binding, the agreement, negotiated between French foreign minister Théophile Delcassé, and Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Secretary, establishes a diplomatic understanding between the two countries.

Art and science

J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan is first performed at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. Charting the fantastical adventures of Peter, 'the boy who never grew up', the Darling children and the villainous Captain Hook in Neverland, many adaptations have been made of the story.
The painter Gwen John settles in Paris, where she becomes the lover and model of the sculptor Auguste Rodin, modelling for his sculpture Muse.

International

Japan attacks the Russian Navy at Port Arthur, sparking the Russo-Japanese war. Hostility was prompted by the rival imperialist ambitions of the Russian and Japanese empires in Manchuria, North East China, and Korea, considered by Japan to be an essential buffer against colonisation by Western Powers. Japan wins a series of victories against Russia which transforms the balance of power in East Asia, and undermines the Tsar's rule in Russia.

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