Henry Tonks

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Henry Tonks, The Hat Shop (1892), Oil on canvas.
Henry Tonks, The Hat Shop (1892), Oil on canvas.

Henry Tonks FRCS (April 9, 1862 – January 8, 1937) was an English surgeon, artist and art teacher.

One of the first English artists to be influenced by the French Impressionists, he exhibited with the New English Art Club and was an associate of many of the more progressive artists of late Victorian England including James McNeill Whistler, Walter Sickert, John Singer Sargent and George Clausen.

From 1892 he taught at the Slade School of Art, (from 1918 as Slade Professor of Fine Art) where he became "the most renowned and formidable teacher of his generation".[1] Pupils of Tonks at the Slade included William Lionel Clause,[2] Harold Gilman, Spencer Gore, Augustus John, Mukul Dey, Gwen John, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, David Bomberg, and Isaac Rosenberg.[3]

As a qualified surgeon, from 1916 to 1918 Tonks worked for Harold Gillies producing watercolours recording facial injury cases at Aldershot and the Queen's Hospital, Sidcup[4], a contribution recognised in the exhibitions "Faces of Battle" at the National Army Museum in 2008[5] and "Henry Tonks: Art and Surgery" at the Strang Print Room in 2002.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Tonks, Henry" The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Ed. Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press, 2004.
  2. ^ CLAUSE, William Lionel in Who Was Who 1920–2007 online, accessed 6 May 2008
  3. ^ Lynda Morris, "Tonks, Henry (1862–1937)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , accessed 23 Aug 2007
  4. ^ VH Ward, 'Henry Tonks - The Facial Injury Artist', British Dental Journal, VOLUME 187, NO. 8, OCTOBER 23 1999
  5. ^ Faces of Battle site
  6. ^ Catalogue details for "Henry Tonks: Art and Surgery"
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