William John Hennessy was born in Ireland. He came to America in 1849 with his mother and brother a year after his father had fled their homeland after taking part in the unsuccessful Young Ireland Party uprising. The Hennessys settled in New York, and when young William came of age, he decided upon a career as an artist. At the age of fifteen, he enrolled at the National Academy of Design, where he learned to draw from the antique, and the following year he was granted admission to the Academy’s life-drawing class.
Hennessy first exhibited at the National Academy in 1857, starting a continuous run of appearances in their annuals that lasted until 1870, when he expatriated himself to Europe. During his time in America, Hennessy was principally known as a genre painter and prolific illustrator for such publications as Harper’s Weekly and several books, including illustrated works of William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Hennessy left the United States and settled in London, living there and in its environs variously for a few years, and summered in Normandy, where he ultimately established a permanent residence in 1875. In 1893, Hennessy returned to England but continued to spend much his time in France. Though the bulk of his career was spent abroad, Hennessy maintained a lifelong identification as an American, exhibiting with other American expatriates at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, and occasionally sending works to the National Academy’s annual exhibitions.
