He is best known for his paintings and prints created in his distinctively flat, stylized aesthetic. Throughout his classically elegant depictions of both everyday life and dreams, Barnet marked his work with symbolic meaning. His paintings often feature solitary figures with birds set amidst an ominous interior or landscape. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and later at the Art Student’s League of New York. Today, Barnet’s work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.