William lee hankey biography of william

‘Too busy to bother,’ was the response from William Lee Hankey when a journalist asked how he had celebrated his 80th birthday, adding that he had allowed the occasion to pass unmarked and spent it, as he usually did, working in his room in London’s Chelsea. This remark encapsulates the temperament of a man who was arguably one of the most energetic artists of his generation and deserves to be better appreciated.

The son of a Chester-based cabinetmaker and upholsterer, William Hankey attended the city’s King Edward’s School before taking up work with a local company that designed furniture, carpets, textiles and wallpaper. His days were spent producing meticulous blueprints and easing his boredom by making surreptitious, lightning figure sketches, which he often had to feverishly conceal when the foreman appeared.

His evenings started to look up in 1886, when he began art studies at Chester School of Science and Art. Under the tutorship of Walter Groom Schröder, Hankey’s work blossomed and he won numerous awards, including a bronze medal for furniture design in 1890. Three years later, he received several awards for ‘design and architectural measurements’ and his watercolour of Poole Hall near Nantwich was reproduced in the Illustrated Magazine of the Chester Art School, with Schröder hailing him as the ‘champion of the year’.

In 1893, Hankey gained a studentship to the National Art Training School (later the Royal College of Art) in London’s South Kensington, where he was taught by the landscape artist Thomas Clack and the formidable neo-Classical painter Sir Edward John Poynter.

Hankey was quick to make his presence felt at the capital’s major exhibitions, too, with his first exposure that year at the Royal Society of British Artists (with Aber Shore), to which he was elected a member only three years later. Surprisingly, however, despite exhibitin

Painter, printmaker and book illustrator William Lee Hankey was born in Chester, England. He studied at the Department of Art and Design at the University of Chester (then the Chester School of Art), followed by additional studies at the Royal College of Art. In 1895, Hankey exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. Before his departure for France, he presided over the London Sketch Club from 1902 to 1904.

Thereafter, and through the period of the First World War, Hankey lived in France and was influenced by the work of Jules Bastien-Lepage. His watercolors earned high praise but beginning in 1902, he was particularly celebrated for his etchings, both monochrome and color, and later for his drypoints, whose subjects were derived from earlier watercolors or based on both pastoral life and the subsequent disruptions of the Great War. From 1936, he was a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolors, and was elected its President in 1947.

He was awarded medals at the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition and a bronze medal at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. He died in London.

English painter

William Lee Hankey (1869–1952) RWS, RI, ROI, RE, NS was a British painter and book illustrator. He specialised in landscapes, character studies and portraits of pastoral life, particularly in studies of mothers with young children such as "We’ve Been in the Meadows All Day".

He was born in Chester and worked as a designer after leaving school. He studied art in the evenings at the Chester School of Art (now the Department of Art and Design at University of Chester), then at the Royal College of Art. Later in Paris he became influenced by the work of Jules Bastien-Lepage, who also favoured rustic scenes depicted in a realistic but sentimental style. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1896 and was President of the London Sketch Club from 1902 to 1904. He stayed in France in the early 1900s, painting many of his works in Brittany and Normandy, where he depicted a peasant lifestyle which was already disappearing in England. From 1904 until well after World War I he maintained a studio at the Etaples art colony.

In 1896, Hankey married fellow artist Mabel Emily Hobson (thereafter commonly known as Mabel Lee Hankey or Mabel Emily Hankey). Their marriage lasted 21 years. Hankey then married Edith Mary Garner.

Writing in The Studio (Vol. XXXVI, No. 154, Jan. 1906) A. L. Baldry commented that "He is in his water-colours an absolute purist; he paints entirely with transparent pigments, and never has recourse to opaque colours; his brushwork is broad and confident – free, on the one hand, from affectation of showy cleverness, and, on the other, from niggling minuteness or over-elaboration; and he does not insist, as is the fashion with many present-day painters, upon lowness of tone." His French paintings include land- and seascapes such as "The Harbour at Étaples" and the distant view of the town in Aucklan

William Lee-Hankey was born in Chester, England in 1869.A painter and etcher of landscapes, figure subjects, and harbour scenes, he studied at Chester School of Art (now the Department of Art and Design at University of Chester) under Walter Schroeder, and the Royal College of Art. Following this he travelled to France to study the works of leading European artists, including Lues Bastien-Lepage, whose work greatly influenced Lee-Hankey's depiction of rural families and scenes. He began exhibting in 1895, first with the Royal Academy in London. He held the position of president of the London Sketch Club from 1902 to 1904. Though he was a well-respected watercolorist, it was his etchings that often stood out as his primary works and earned him a reputation of one of the leading British printmakers of his time. He began etching in 1902, later switching to drypoint.

Lee-Hankey spent some years in France, studying the landscapes and people of Normandy and Cote d'Azur. After witnessing the effects of the German invasion of France and Belgium in 1914, his work began to focus on the French refugees whose lives were rarely depicted in artistic circles. From 1915 to 1918, he served with with the Artists Rifles, a volunteer regiment of the British Army.

Lee-Hankey won a gold medal at the Barcelone International Exhibition in a bronze medal in Chicago. His work is represented in collections both in England and abroad. Exhibitions include: the Royal Academy; the Old Watercolour Society; the New Watercolour Society; the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colours. In 1936 he became a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolors, and was elected president in 1947. 

Lee-Hankey died in London, Feb. 10, 1952.