Biography

Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938) was a painter in oil and watercolour as well as being a prolific printmaker, producing over 700 etchings and drypoints during his career to great acclaim. A definitive catalogue raisonné of his printed works was published in 2012, in which the author Gary Morgan asserts Menpes ‘was considered one of the greatest artists working in London in the late 19th century’. 

Menpes, who was born in Port Adelaide, South Australia, was the second son of property developer James Menpes. He studied at the Adelaide School of Design with John Hood but travelled to London where in 1875 he settled and attended the South Kensington School of Design.  In 1880 he made a sketching tour of Brittany where he met James McNeill Whistler, becoming his student and learning from him how to etch. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from this time on and was a leader, with Whistler, of the Painter-Etcher movement and a founding member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers.