The Life of Henry Tonks

Henry Tonks (1862 - 1937) was a surgeon before taking up a career in art. He was born in Solihull, educated in Bristol and studied medicine in Brighton and London. From 1888 he took evening art classes at Westminster School of Art; by 1892 he had begun teaching at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he became an influential instructor to the likes of Stanley Spencer, Augustus John and Paul Nash. During World War I he resumed his career as a surgeon and famously created a series of pastel drawings of facial injury cases. By 1918 Tonks had became an official War Artist touring the Western Front with John Singer Sargent; in 1919, he visited Archangel, Russia. Post-war he continued as Slade Professor of Fine Art. He died at his home in Chelsea, London in 1937.