When he was sixteen his family moved to Bath where the patronage of an opulent coach-builder named Charles Spackman allowed him to follow his talent as an artist.

Barker was an occasional exhibitor at the Royal Academy and the British Institution for almost fifty years, during which period he exhibited nearly one hundred pictures.

Few pictures of the English school are more generally known and appreciated than The Woodman, of which it appears two were painted, both of them from nature, and of life size: the first was sold to Mr. Macklin for 500 guineas; the second, for the same amount, became the property of Lord W. Paulett.

When Barker's talents were in full vigour, no artist of his time had a greater hold on popular favour; his pictures of The Woodman, Old Tom (painted before he was seventeen years of age), and gipsy groups and rustic figures, were copied onto almost every possible material: Staffordshire pottery, Worcester china, Manchester cottons, and Glasgow linens.

[15] In an episode of BBC's Britain's Lost Masterpieces broadcast in November 2019, a forest scene thought to be a copy of a famous painting by Gainsborough, was located at Birmingham Art Gallery.

As well as his father's ability, Thomas' younger brother Benjamin Barker II (1776–1838) was also a talented artist known for his landscape work.

Many of Jones Barker's works were of a military nature, including Lord Clive's relief of Lucknow and The Allied generals before Sebastopol.