Hubert von Herkomer (born Hubert Herkomer), painter, printmaker, film director and composer, was born in Waal, Germany, on May 26, 1849. Herkomer and his parents arrived in Southampton, England, in 1857. Young Herkomer accompanied his father to Munich where he studied briefly at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1865. He also trained at Southampton and South Kensington Schools of Art. He moved to London in 1870 where he submitted his wood engravings for publication in the weekly illustrated newspaper, “The Graphic.”

Herkomer became a naturalized British citizen on January 10, 1872. He began his painting career in 1874 as a realist painter whose subjects depicted the life of the poor. Around 1880, he turn to portrait painting and achieved great fame, especially for his paintings The Lady in Black and The Lady in White, which were exhibited at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1889. Several years earlier in 1878, he submitted his painting The Last Muster to the Universal Exposition and he was awarded the medal of honor and the following year he received the Knight’s Cross of the Legion of Honor. Herkomer was accepted as a member of the Royal Academy in 1879, and in 1885 he became the Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford.

Benezit was effusive in praise: “Herkomer can rightly be considered one of the most remarkable contemporary English portrait painters. He was able to bring out all the sincerity and awareness inherent in the Pre-Raphaelite technique. The figures of his subjects in his historical paintings, as well as in his portraits, possess an extraordinary intensity of expression. His coloring is very pleasing, sufficiently luminous, and his impasto is rich and well-developed. He also produced some very beautiful watercolors and engravings that are highly regarded by print collectors.”

Herkomer was the director of several film including the 1914 short film, The Grit of a Dandy, for which his son, Siegfried, wrote the screenplay. Hubert von Herkomer is also listed as an actor but none of the films have survived.

The works of Hubert von Herkomer are represented in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Hubert von Herkomer died in London, England on March 31, 1914.