Henry Farrer, painter and printmaker, was born to Martha Kennington and Thomas Farrer in London, England, on March 23, 1843. His brother, Thomas, had a formal education studying under John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Henry was self-taught and was originally highly influenced by the style of his brother.

Farrer immigrated to the U.S. in 1863 and opened his studio in Brooklyn, New York. He worked primarily in watercolor and was one of the co-founders of the American Watercolor Society. In the 1870s, Farrer took up etching and became a founding member of the New York Etching Club in 1877. His best-known etchings are street scenes of New York and the New York Harbor.

His work is represented in the collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas; the Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Morgan Library and Museum, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

S. R. Koehler selected Farrer’s work for his book Choice Etchings, which was published in 1887 by Alexander Strahan in London. The book contains twenty original etchings by Farrer, William E. Marshall, James D. Smillie, I .M. Gaugengigl, Peter Moran, Otto H. Bauer, Thomas Moran, C.F. Kimball, Stephen J. Ferris, Paul Lerat, F .S. Church, Stephen Parrish and Anna Lea Merritt.

Henry Farrer died in Brooklyn, New York on February 24, 1903, and is buried in London.