Vatican Museums

During his long career Barnet was passionately committed to the theme of the family, which constituted the vital core of all his artistic research. The first subjects he painted when very young were his parents. The young artist's interests then broadened: first he turned to the great masters, then he was drawn to the American Abstract Artists Group, formed in New York in 1936 to promote abstract art in America. But with the birth of his children, the private realm once again become a pole of attraction. Extremely simplified images were thus born, purified of unnecessary detail, such as Four generations in 1984, a work that expresses the achievement of balance between the two dimensions constantly present in his art: humanity and geometry.