My friend Harriet Barber, who has died aged 46 of cancer, was the painter nonpareil of the Dorset coast, especially Ringstead Bay. She returned again and again to capture the edge of the sea, shore and bay in her signature oil paintings that were always vibrant, full of the motion of paint applied at the scene, and sometimes even gritty with sand.
Harriet was a well-loved teacher of art at Clayesmore school in Blandford Forum, Dorset, but she had wanted to explore the freedom of full-time painting and so set up her own art business in 2008. It was in this year that she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her response was remarkable.
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