Lester G. (Lester George) Hornby

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1882, Lester G. Hornby built his career as a painter, illustrator, and especially an etcher. Reliable museum and gallery sources describe him as American and note that he studied first at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Eric Pape School of Illustration in Boston before continuing his training in Paris.

In Paris, Hornby studied at major academies including the Académie Julian, the Sorbonne, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. His reputation grew early: sources connected with museum collections note that he showed work in Paris and later exhibited regularly in Boston and elsewhere in the United States.

Hornby is often remembered most strongly for his printmaking and for the work he produced during World War I, when he served as a war correspondent. Those wartime images, along with his architectural views and travel subjects, helped make him known as an artist who could combine technical skill with a strong sense of place. He died in 1956.