Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Hacker, Arthur
HACKER, ARTHUR (1858–1919), painter, born in London 25 September 1858, was the second son of Edward Hacker, line engraver. He became a student at the Royal Academy schools in 1876 and continued his studies in Paris in the atelier of Léon Bonnat (1880–1881). When he was only nineteen one of his studies was hung at Burlington House; but his first Academy contribution to attract general attention was ‘Her Daughter's Legacy’, a scene from peasant life, which he exhibited in 1881. His ‘Relics of the Brave’, exhibited in 1883, was immediately purchased by an American for the town of Savannah, Georgia. About this time Hacker, together with his friend, the painter Solomon J. Solomon, went for a five months' trip to Spain and Morocco, and in after years Hacker repeatedly visited the north of Africa. In 1887 he exhibited ‘Pelagia and Philammon’, his first more ambitious essay in the rendering of the nude (now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool); to 1890 and 1891 respectively belong ‘Vae Victis: Sack of Morocco by the Almohades’, and ‘Christ and the Magdalen’; while 1892 saw the exhibition of ‘The Annunciation’, which was purchased by the trustees of the Chantrey fund and is now in the National Galley of British Art at Millbank (Tate Gallery). In 1893 Hacker exhibited ‘Circe’, which achieved great popular success, and ‘The Sleep of the Gods’. The following year he was elected A.R.A., and sixteen years later (1910) R.A.
The work of Hacker may be divided into three groups. One is formed by his more important subject-pictures, of which several have been mentioned, the best known being his ‘Annunciation’, an arresting composition, somewhat melodramatic in conception, and showing the artist obviously under the influence of the more conventional type of contemporary French painting. Another notable group comprises his London street scenes, in which he favoured soft and misty effects of atmosphere; of these his diploma piece, ‘Wet Night, Piccadilly Circus’ (1911), is an example. Finally, Hacker was very frequently employed as a portrait painter, especially towards the end of his career. Among his sitters may be mentioned Sir John Brunner (twice), Sir Frank Short, and the sculptors Edward Onslow Ford and Sir William Goscombe John. Marked at all times by considerable facility of execution, brilliant in colouring, and popular in its sentimental appeal, the work of Hacker can, however, scarcely be regarded as being of a very profound interest.
Hacker married in 1907 Lilian, third daughter of Edward Price-Edwards. They had no children. He suffered from heart trouble, and was found dead on the doorstep of his house in Cromwell Road, South Kensington, on 12 November 1919. He bequeathed £500 to the benefactors' fund of the Royal Academy.
[The Daily Telegraph, 14 November 1919; Studio, vol. lvi, 175–182, 1912; Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, Dictionary of Contributors, 1769–1904, vol. iii, 1905–1906.]