Hankey, William Lee "Pre Dachicourt" Etching 1920

Frame size approx: 11 1/8" X 14 3/8". Image size: 3 7/8" X 5". Signed in pencil, and with the artistÕs blindstamp. Very good impression from the only edition of 100 signed proofs, printed by William Lee-Hankey himself. William Lee Hankey (1869Ð1952) 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. 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. 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. It was Hankey's black and white and coloured etchings of the people of ƒtaples, several developed from these paintings, which gained him a reputation as 'one of the most gifted of the figurative printmakers working in original drypoint during the first thirty years of the 20th century'. One that is particularly striking for its stylistic presentation was "The Refugees" (above), his contribution to raising awareness of the consequences for ordinary people of the German invasion of France and Belgium in 1914. He went on to serve with the Artists' Rifles from 1915 to 1918.
Dimensions: 14.5 x 11 in