A child of the people

William Lee-Hankey (often rendered as Lee Hankey) (1869-1952)  was a British painter, printmaker and book illustrator. He specialised in landscapes, character studies and portraits of pastoral life, particularly in studies of mothers with young children such as We've Been in the Meadows All Day (c. 1904, Christchurch Art Gallery). 

While as a painter, Lee-Hankey was associated with the Newlyn School, his etchings are of particular significance here. Having worked at the Etaples art colony from 1904, he maintained his studio there despite the outbreak of war in 1914, and went on to make etchings of local people which sometimes developed from his paintings. They 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'. (Campbell Fine Art) 

A child of the people harks back to the intense, slightly austere solitary figures of children and female agricultural workers by the 19th century painter Jules Bastien-Lepage, whom Lee-Hankey much admired. Stylistically, however, its more sparing, graphic style reflects the original date of the drypoint, c. 1912-13; this impression probably dates from a few years later and can be linked to one in the British Museum. The title, 'A child of the people', suggests an orphan; certainly the young girl's aspect is grave, and it would have taken on a new and poignant significance in a wartime context. The girl's close-fitting bonnet, as well as the gabled buildings and poplars in the background, all link it firmly to Etaples. Lee-Hankey enlists the viewer's sympathies without falling into the trap of sentimentality.

See: Wikipedia, 'William Lee Hankey', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lee_Hankey

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    May 2018