Henry John Yeend-King

(British, 1855-1924)

Henry John Yeend-King was a British realist artist best known for his genre paintings featuring bucolic English landscapes and tranquil young women. Born on August 21, 1855 in London, Yeend-King first trained as a choirboy at Temple Church, followed by a three-year apprenticeship as a glass painter. He began his artistic studies under Victorian painter William Bromley and then moved to Paris to study under Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat and Fernand Cormon. The atmospheric quality and bold coloration of his work shows the Impressionist plein air influence of his early Parisian training, although his paintings are notably more detailed.

In 1881, Yeend-King married Edith Atkinson. They settled in London, which he considered his home base even as he traveled extensively throughout England and France in pursuit of subject matter. He favored the countryside, and often used his daughter Lillian as a model for the serene female figures in his paintings.

Yeend-King was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists (1879), the Royal Institute of Watercolor Painters (1886), and the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colors. He was a frequent exhibitor at all three major exhibition halls, as well as exhibiting throughout Europe and the United States. In 1885, Yeend-King provided visual and written expression of the French countryside in an article titled “A Round in France,” written and illustrated for The Magazine of Art.

The artist died on June 10, 1924 at the age of 68. His works can be seen at the Manchester Art Gallery, the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester, and the Brampton Museum in Newcastle-under-Lyme.