About the Artist
William Tom Warrener (1861-1934)
William Warrener was a painter of portraits, nudes and landscapes, the second son of a coal merchant, who studied under A G Webster at Lincoln School of Art. In 1884 he received the Mayor of Lincoln’s Gold Medal and a Queens prize in the National Art Examinations at South Kensington. Circa 1885 he won a scholarship to the Slade School and also studied in Paris at the ‘Academie Julian’. In Paris he was friendly with William Rothenstein and Henri Toulouse Lautrec, who painted his portrait. He was the model for Lautrec’s famous poster ‘L’Anglais au Moulin Rouge’ and figures in the poster ‘Jane Avril Dansant’. Warrener spent sometime in Paris but following his brother’s death returned to Lincoln to continue the family coal business. He was founder member of the Lincoln Drawing Club 1906 and first president of the Lincolnshire Artist’s Society, which formed in 1930. His earlier works were rather academic, but from his time in Paris he painted in an Impressionist style.
