Harriet Nell Barber was born in
Chichester and studied at
Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design in
Dorset. She undertook her first degree at
Manchester Polytechnic, studying at the Medlock campus. In 1989, she was accepted at the
Slade School of Fine Art, for a two-year postgraduate Higher Diploma in Fine Art. Here she studied under Norman Norris and Euan Uglow, painting solely in the F Studio from the life models. In an environment closely associated with Uglow many of the poses adopted by the models would last for weeks, sometimes the whole term. In 1996, she won the £1,000 student award in the NatWest 90s Prize For Art for a depiction of female bathers at Hampstead Pond. She was selected along with Ivy Smith for the first
Jerwood Art Commissions in 2000 for two paintings for the Chamber of the
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Her painting,
Children at Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, was used as the cover image for the
BMJ journal,
Archives of Disease in Childhood. In 2008, she set up her own art business for her paintings, and one month later was diagnosed with
breast cancer, from which she recovered after months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In 2009, she was selected as a finalist for the Barclays Trading Places Awards, which honour those who have started a business while facing personal adversity.
Cathy Lomax said of Barber's seascapes executed in oil on board:Barber's paintings are refreshingly raw, colour piled on in an effort to summon up the emotion of the place rather than worrying to much about accuracies. They have an endearing hint of the naïve about them ==Personal life==