Arthur Hacker was the son of Edward Hacker a line engraver. He studied at the RA Schools, and with Leon Bonnat in Paris, where a fellow student was Stanhope Forbes. The influence of  his French training was evident and stayed with the artist throughout his career. Hacker was an excellent craftsman, but like his near contemporary the French composer Camille Saint-Saens was often accused of producing work which was facile. Hacker exhibited at the RA from 1878, his early works being mostly genre paintings. In 1882 he exhibited ’Pelagia and Philammon,’ at Liverpool, in a highly dramatic French style. ‘The Annunciation,’ which was bought by the Chantry Bequest in 1892 was in a similar vein. As the public taste for his French influenced academic and dramatic paintings waned, Hacker established a highly lucrative career as a portrait painter. He painted many society portraits, including a number of sitters with artistic connections, including Sir William Goscombe John, C Dyson Perrins, and M H Speilmann. Hacker also painted London street scenes, often at night, or with rather misty effects. ‘A Wet Night in Piccadilly was his Diploma Work in 1910. Arthur Hacker’s wife Lillian was also a painter, and exhibited at the RA from 1909-1924.

Arthur Hacker was, facile or not, a highly competent artist who produced accomplished portraits, and strikingly effective images.

Mr Arthur Hacker RA was found dead on the doorstep of his house in Cromwell Road, Earls Court early on Wednesday morning. A constable discovered the door of the house open and Mr Hacker in his pyjamas and dressing gown just inside the door. A doctor who was summoned found life extinct. Mr Hacker had been suffering from heart disease and bronchitis for some time past. Mr Hacker was last seen alive by one of the parlourmaids who gave him a glass of water at 10 o’clock on Tuesday night. It is thought that feeling unwell he had left his bed in order to go and see his doctor and died on his own doorstep.

Mr Hacker, who was born in London 60 years ago, was made ARA in 1894 and RA in 1910. He was one of those academic painters who began a generation ago to supply a French instead of a British article. This he did very skilfully and quickly became popular. His ‘Annunciation,’ bought by the Chantry Bequest in spite of a protest by Mr George Moore , looks like a French salon picture.

People supposed that his foreign manner was necessarily artistic; it was at least a change from the old British anecdote and the old British way of painting it. Mr Hacker did at any rate, whist setting one object on the canvas, remember that he also had to paint others.. He gave us atmosphere, subordination and colours that did not compete with each other like noises in the street. Afterwards when people grew a little tired of the French method, he did not quite retain his popularity. There were many who painted in the same way, and young men who produced more violent novelties. But he was not content to go on painting fancy pictures in a salon manner. He became a fair portrait painter and in later years aimed at a vague but pleasant incandescence in his subjects. There was never quite enough force of colour in them to justify the sacrifice of form, and they had no great success popular or artistic. His later works give an impression of failing energy and disappointed hopes. Among his other pictures were ‘Her Daughters Legacy, and Christ and Magdalene.’

Mr Hacker married in 1907 Lillian, daughter of the late Mr E Price Edwards. He leaves no children.

The funeral is at St James’s Piccadilly on Monday at 10.45, followed by interment  at Brookwood. A train will leave Necroplolis Station at Westminster Bridge at 11.30.