Lady in Red

Hacker was born in London, the son of Edward Hacker, a line engraver. He attended the Royal Academy Schools before studying in Paris under Leon Bonnat, a well known portrait painter. In 1892 his The Annuciation was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest and he was soon elected an Associate Member of the Royal Academy and began teaching at the Royal Academy Schools. He was elected an Academician in 1910 and began to paint a series of London street scenes. However, he is best known for his portraits and paintings of elegant Edwardian ladies in beautiful rustic settings. This portrait was given by the artist to Lt Col. Sir James Reginald Lea Rankin, 2nd Baronet. Rankin was a soldier, war correspondent, big-game hunter and writer on history and travel. He saw service during the Boer War with the irregular cavalry being a member of Colonel Rimington’s Guides. His published books include: A Subaltern’s Letters to his Wife (1901); A Tour in the Himalayas and Beyond (1930); In Morocco with General d’Amade (1908); The Inner History of the Balkan War (1914) and A Notebook in Corsica, A Night in the Open at 22,000 feet, Pig-sticking at Jodhpur, Canada in ’95 and other Essays (1930). Among other pursuits he was noted for shooting the largest snow leopard on record in India, for surviving being frozen after falling asleep in the Andes and for his search for the extinct giant sloth in Chile.