Ernest Martin Hennings Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

It was in 1901 that Ernest Martin Hennings at the age of 15 began taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, which was modeled on the great European art schools and made particular emphasis on the importance of drawing. On June 17, 1904, he graduated from the school with distinction but continued to study there for an extra two years, under the instruction of John Vanderpoel.

Hennings took up work as a commercial artist, painting murals and portraits around Chicago. The murals Hennings worked on were usually on canvas panels, he painted murals one for the Art Institute of Chicago and one for the Florentine Ballroom in the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago.

Out of a yearning to return to fine art painting, Ernest Martin Hennings re-enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago for further studies in painting. He traveled to France and there in 1912, he entered a painting in a competition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and won second prize. From Paris, he went to Germany and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, under the tutelage of Angelo Junk, Walter Thor, and Franz von Stuck, who was particularly influential on the painter. But there was trouble brewing and before World War, I escalated to full-out war, Ernest Martin Hennings returned to his hometown of Chicago.

Ernest Martin Hennings soon attracted the attention ofmany Chicago business people and art patrons, including Carter H. Harrison, Jr. Harrison who offered to sponsor a trip to visit and paint in Taos, New Mexico, in return for the works he completed there during his stay. Hennings accepted the benefactor's suggestion and in 1917 departed to the west to spend the summer and fall in and around Taos, oil painting the landscape and the Taos Indians. When done with his assignment, Hennings traveled back to Chicago to continue his work as a commercial artist, but three years later he moved to Taos.

Art Movement: American Western Art.
Artists Influencing Ernest Martin Hennings: John Vanderpoel, Angelo Junk, Walter Thor, Franz von Stuck.
He Traveled To France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Morocco.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.