Herkomer was a British painter, also a film-director and composer, was born at Waal, in Bavaria. He exhibited a very large number of memorable portraits, figure subjects and landscapes, in oil and watercolor; he achieved marked success as a worker in enamel, as an etcher, mezzotint engraver and illustrative draughtsman; and he exercised wide influence upon art education by means of the Herkomer School (Incorporated), at Bushey, which he founded in 1883 and directed without payment until 1904, when he retired. It was then voluntarily wound up, and is now defunct.
Despite being a prominent member of Royal Academy, Royal Water-Colour Society and the Royal Engravers, as well as being on familiar terms with the royal family, Herkomer was never totally accepted by the British establishment: He was ultimately a victim of the deteriorating relationship between Great Britain and Germany, where he shuttled in between, spending most of his summers in Bavaria. Herkomer's massive house, Lululaund, named after Lulu Griffith, second of his three wives, served as his studio, school, theatre and movie studio, where he put on productions of his own plays and musical compositions.
Four of his pictures, Found (1885), Sir Henry Tate (1897), Portrait of Lady Tate (1899) and The Council of the Royal Academy (1908), are in the Tate Collection. In 1907, he received the honorary degree of DCL at Oxford, and a knighthood was conferred upon him by the king in addition to the commandership of the Royal Victorian Order with which he was already decorated.
Herkomer was also a pioneering film maker. He established a studio in Lululaund and directed some seven historical costume dramas, designed to be shown accompanied by his own music.
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