Joseph Pennell

Joseph Pennell (1860-), American artist and author, was born in Philadelphia on the 4th of July 1860, and first studied there, but like his compatriot and friend, J. M. Whistler, he afterwards went to Europe and made his home in London. He produced numerous books (many of them in collaboration with his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell), but his chief distinction is as an original etcher and lithographer, and notably as an illustrator. Their close acquaintance with Whistler led to Mr and Mrs Pennell undertaking a biography of that artist in 1906, and, after some litigation with his executrix on the right to use his letters, the book was published in 1908.