1855 – 1924

Exhibited 1880 – 1924

Henry John Yeend King was an important Victorian rustic genre and landscape artist. He was born in London on August 21, 1855 and began his education as a choirboy at the Temple Church. He spent his early working life as an apprentice in a glass works under O’Connor of Berners Street, Marylebone. In the latter half of the 19th Century Marylebone was considered London’s artistic quarter and the presence of so many artists’ studios, no doubt tempted him to change his career.

Studied under William Bromley, the genre artist, and later in Paris with Leon Bonnat and Fernand Cormon, both Professors at the School of Fine Arts. The plein-air technique prevalent in France influenced his art, and on his return to England he chose to specialise in landscapes and depictions of rustic genre.

Yeend King lived in London for most of his life however, like many of his contemporaries his heart was ‘in the country’.  He travelled extensively throughout England and France in search of suitable subject matter.

His specialty was scenes of rustic genre and the countryside – almost never showing the heavily industrialized cities.  His paintings depict pretty farm girls (often using his own daughter as a model) at work in the fields or on the farm – much like the French Realist artist Julien Dupré; or women at rest in tranquil landscapes or cottage gardens.

In 1881 he married Edith Lilian Atkinson, daughter of T.L. Atkinson (the mezzotint engraver), and they had one daughter – Lilian (who became an artist).

A regular supporter of the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists and the Grosvenor Gallery, his painting entitled ‘Milking Time’ was bought by the Chantrey Bequest in 1898 when the artist was still at the relatively young age of 43. Certain parallels can be found in the work of Robert Gallon whose wife’s sister he married.

In 1879, he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artist (RBA) and in 1887 he was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour (of which he later became vice-president).  He was also a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours in 1888.  Yeend King also exhibited paintings throughout Europe and the United States – winning medals in Paris, Berlin and Chicago.

It was at the Royal Academy exhibit of 1897 that the Council of the RA, as trustees for the permanent collection in New South Wales, purchased The Garden by the River and in 1898 the Tate Gallery, under the Chantrey Bequest, purchased Milking Time.

He died on June 10, 1924 at the age of 68.

Works in public collections:

From Green to Gold (c.1889) – Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Landscape with a Windmill – Leicestershire Museums & Art Galleries, Leicester
River Banks and Blossoms (1909) – Rochdale Art Gallery, England
A Cottage Garden, Braemar – Stockport Art Gallery, England
The Wood yard – Leeds City Art Galleries, England
Landscape – City Art Gallery, Manchester
Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire – Graves Art Gallery, England
Milking Time – Tate Gallery, England
Girls Herding Geese – Oldham Art Gallery, England
The Millstream – Oldham Art Gallery, England

Exhibited at:-Royal Society of Artists, Birmingham x 13

Baillie Gallery x 1

Dudley Gallery x 3

Dowdeswell Gallery x 53

Fine Art Society x 2

Grosvenor Gallery x 6

Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts x 2

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool x 29

Manchester City Art Gallery x 27

Royal Academy x 87

Royal Society of British Artists x 92

Royal Hibernian Academy x 2

Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours x 161

Royal Institute of Oil Painters x 102