William Lee Hankey

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William Lee Hankey (1869-1952) RWS,RI,ROI,RE,NS was a British painter [1] and book illustrator [2]. He specialised in landscapes, character studies [3] and portraits of pastoral life, particularly in studies of mothers with young children such as "We’ve Been in the Meadows All Day" [4]

He was born in Chester and studied his craft at the Chester School of Art under Walter Schroeder, the Royal College of Art and later in Paris where 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 Royal Sketch Club from 1902 to 1904. . He stayed in France in the early 1900s, painting many of his works in Brittany, Normandy and the Cote d'Azure, capturing a peasant lifestyle which had already disappeared in England.

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.”

He was a member of the Newlyn School, a group of English artists based in the titular village in Cornwall who were themselves influenced by the romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Keats. He served with the Artists' Rifles during the Great War from 1915 to 1918.