Here Barton dissects the layers of his bed, from the crumpled sheets on top to the intermediary bedsprings and frame, down to suitcases and sandals on the floor. Even without its heartbreaking inscription, “Alone again,” this peculiar visual inventory conveys a sense of solitude and itinerancy.

This sheet is filled with figures and drawings of figures, making it difficult to distinguish between the representation of subjects and the representation of the representation of subjects. Russ Zerbe, who was a lover of Barton’s, is identified as the sitter in the composition’s central portrait; Zerbe may be shown elsewhere in the room as well. Compositions such as these suggest that drawing was the primary lens through which Barton experienced the world.

Barton kept aquariums in his childhood bedroom. The image of the adolescent artist in his room surrounded by fishbowls presages a larger current in Barton’s art: his tendency to reflect, refract, and displace his surroundings, as if they were being viewed through a glass or another vessel filled with water.

This drawing points to an affinity with the early work of Andy Warhol. Barton addressed some of the same subjects that Warhol did—notably, beautiful youths and flowers—in a similarly delicate linear style. It is conceivable that Barton was familiar with Warhol’s early drawings, which were exhibited in New York and circulated— though not widely—through self-published books in the early 1950s, before Barton moved to the Bay Area.

Along with several others, this work suggests that Barton was familiar with the drawings of Jean Cocteau. The French avant-gardist’s unflinching depictions of gay subjects, including bars that he frequented, would certainly have been of interest to the young American artist, as they were to his contemporary Andy Warhol. This tender drawing of a sleeping man resembles a series of drawings that Cocteau published of his lover Raymond Radiguet, a writer, in the 1920s. (Barton’s drawing of leaves on the sheet’s reverse is visible.)

Barton adored classical music, which he often listened to while he drew. In this drawing, the domestic setting is signaled by a bookshelf, a section of paneled wall, and an unadorned lightbulb hanging from a chain. At left, violinists and a cellist surround a piano; an audience hovers around them. The line forming the headless piano player’s left arm extends from the milk poured by a rendering of the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer’s Milkmaid (ca. 1660). In Barton’s world, line was capable of stitching together past and present, painting and music, and perhaps most importantly, art and life.

Barton had worked as a printer’s apprentice as a boy, but it was not until he met Henry Evans that the artist began to produce his own prints. Using linoleum blocks that Evans provided, Barton cut prints in a linear style similar to that of his drawings. The plates in this portfolio, printed by hand at Evans’s Peregrine Press, portray a range of rooms, from the spare interior at left, in which Barton’s feet are visible, to the more sumptuously decorated space at right.

Barton had worked as a printer’s apprentice as a boy, but it was not until he met Henry Evans that the artist began to produce his own prints. Using linoleum blocks that Evans provided, Barton cut prints in a linear style similar to that of his drawings. The plates in this portfolio, printed by hand at Evans’s Peregrine Press, portray a range of rooms, from the spare interior at left, in which Barton’s feet are visible, to the more sumptuously decorated space at right.

Barton had worked as a printer’s apprentice as a boy, but it was not until he met Henry Evans that the artist began to produce his own prints. Using linoleum blocks that Evans provided, Barton cut prints in a linear style similar to that of his drawings. The plates in this portfolio, printed by hand at Evans’s Peregrine Press, portray a range of rooms, from the spare interior at left, in which Barton’s feet are visible, to the more sumptuously decorated space at right.