Bernard Benedict Hemy (1855-1913)
North Shields

The youngest brother of noted British marine watercolourist Charles Napier Hemy (1841-1917) and Thomas Hemy (1852-1937) also a marine painter, BB Hemy was born in Australia where his family had emigrated in 1852. Like both of his siblings, he later returned to his family's traditional home at Newcastle-on-Tyne where he settled to paint for the remainder of his life in North Shields. It is likely that he studied art at the Newcastle Art School where both of his brothers attended. Unlike them however, he was not widely travelled  preferring the quieter life of the North East Coast of England. Throughout his career he displayed a strong competence at creating realistic portrayals of every day marine activity, skilfully documenting coastal and harbour views as well as local fishing scenes of the period. Today, paintings by Bernard Benedict Hemy are considered the rarest of the Hemy family. Although he is known to have exhibited at the Suffolk Street Gallery in London in both 1875 and 1877 and was a participant in various other English exhibitions, none of his works are known to exist in public collections.