William J. Hennessy's father left Ireland in considerable haste in 1848, having been a party to that year's unsuccessful Young Ireland Party uprising. He landed in Quebec but made his way directly to New York. His wife and two young sons joined him there in July 1849. In 1903, when the Academy was canvassing its living members to update its biographical records, Hennessy rejected the four-by-five-inch card provided as being too confining and wrote an extensive sketch of his life and career to Harry M. Watrous, the Academy's secretary. He described his beginning as an artist: "An old English portrait painter gave me my first instruction in the painting of heads, but I had always been fond of drawing from figures of living persons." He entered the Academy's antique class late in 1854:
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I had drawn so constantly that before I entered the School I could draw well and readily from any statue or living figure, so that after I had finished my second study from the Antique. . . . I was surprised very much when I got to the antique class one evening to receive from the council a card entitling me to draw from the living model. I was delighted of course and after my first drawing from the model, I abandoned the too much over painted antique plaster works. I then began to paint little figure pictures with old Dutch interiors from nature which could be found then in much of New York and on Long Island.
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Dry records need not perfectly represent a day-to-day situation. However, the Academy school register appears to contradict Hennessy's memory, showing him enrolled in the antique class from 1854-55 through 1857-58 and in the life class from 1855-56 through 1860-61-a fairly conventional pattern for student progress and attendance during that period.
Hennessy first exhibited in an Academy annual in 1857 and was represented by two to five works in each year's show through 1870. He favored genre scenes with poetic themes but also worked in landscape. A founder of the Artists' Fund Society, he was a regular contributor to its annual exhibitions and sales. He also showed his paintings widely in most of the venues available at the time. His main subject was genre, but he also did landscapes. From 1860 until his expatriation to Europe in 1870, Hennessy gave his address as the New York University building, a prominent studio complex. That would suggest full-time residence in New York; however, H. W. French wrote that Hennessy was living and active in New Haven, Connecticut, just prior to leaving for England.
During the American portion of his career he was chiefly recognized for his work as an illustrator for periodicals such as Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's journals, and especially books, such as editions of William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. His most admired work in graphic design was a large folio published in 1871, Mr. Edwin Booth in His Various Dramatic Characters, engraved by William J. Linton.
Hennessy enjoyed considerable success in Europe. He lived in England-largely in and around London-and summered in Normandy for the first five years after he left America. In 1875 he made Normandy his year-round residence, with frequent visits to London. He returned to England in 1893, living first in Brighton and later in Ridgewick, Sussex, but continued in his later years to spend much time in France.
Although Hennessy's career was essentially spent abroad, he did not detach himself from America and was consistently reviewed as an American artist. He was represented in the American exhibition at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia of 1876 and contributed to the Academy annuals of 1880-82 and 1900. His voluble response to Watrous's 1903 appeal for information reflects a respect for his American roots. The Academy reciprocated at the annual meeting of 1918, the first following Hennessy's death, by reading a brief but sensitive eulogy into the minutes: "He lived abroad for many years, and was known to but few of us, but those that had that privilege, speak warmly of his charm and geniality."
For a portrait of the artist, see William R. Baker.
