Tonks, Henry

Tonks, Henry (1862–1937). British painter, draughtsman, and teacher, born in Solihull, Warwickshire. Tonks trained as a doctor and rose to the position of senior resident medical officer at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He had been interested in art since childhood, however, and in 1888 (the year in which he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons) he began attending evening classes at Westminster School of Art under Fred Brown. When Brown was appointed professor at the Slade School in 1892 he invited Tonks to become his assistant, and in 1893 he abandoned his successful medical career for the more precarious life of an artist and art teacher. (However, he worked in plastic surgery during the First World War.) Tonks remained at the Slade until 1930, succeeding Brown as professor in 1918, and became the most renowned and formidable teacher of his generation—‘in appearance tall, gaunt, and severe’ (DNB). Under him the Slade maintained its position as the dominant art school in Britain (although it was now challenged by the Royal College of Art), and he was a major influence as an upholder of traditional values and an opponent of modern ideas: ‘I don't believe I really like any modern development.’ He set high standards for his pupils, particularly in draughtsmanship (his own forte) and he got on well with them, in spite of being notorious for his sarcasm and abruptness. The duality in his nature came out in other ways, too: he was secretive, touchy, suspicious, and resentful of criticism, but capable of close friendships, as, for example, with his fellow-teacher Steer. Sir John Rothenstein writes that ‘To students whom he considered to be of promise … his kindness was proverbial, although his ability to distinguish great talent from promise was far from unerring. He recognized the genius of Augustus John with reluctance, while the modest geese whom he acclaimed as swans were many.’ Because of his refusal to move with the times he was increasingly looked on as a back number by more progressive artists and students, but he remained a dominant presence in the art world and is mentioned in virtually all artists' memoirs of the period.

Tonks's own paintings are mainly figure subjects, often consciously (or self-consciously) poetic in spirit: ‘A painter who is not a poet ought to be put in the stocks.’ Rothenstein refers to ‘the sheer prettiness of much of his art', but his pictures often look rather laborious, partly because of his technique of ‘Tonking', which involved using an absorbent material to soak excess oil from the canvas after each day's work and so produce a dry surface for the next session. His best-known work is probably the conversation piece Saturday Night in The Vale (Tate Gallery, London, 1928–9), which shows George Moore reading aloud to a gathering at Tonks's studio in The Vale, Chelsea. Moore complained that he had been made to look like a ‘flabby old cook', whereas Tonks had depicted himself as a young and elegant ‘demi-god'.