06/16/2026
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Barnes' Shop, Newport, Arkansas, William J. Hinchey, 1880, graphite and pastel on paper, 5 5/8 x 7 in., St. Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Katherine J. Hinchey Cochran
Irish-born William Hinchey developed his artistic talents early in life, thanks to encouragement from his father. It is reported that by his twelfth birthday, the young artist had earned enough money painting portraits to pay for half of his tuition at Trinity College. Hinchey was later educated at Oxford and spent a period of time painting in Paris during the 1840s. Little is known about the specifics of his artistic training, but an examination of his many portraits executed in oil show him to be a highly adept painter.
In 1854 Hinchey made his way to the United States, with the hopes of helping with restoration efforts at Spanish missions in New Mexico and taking on commissions from new Catholic churches. Within two years health troubles spurred a move to St. Louis, where he established a successful portrait studio. Hinchey painted likenesses of many distinguished statesmen, including a well-documented portrait of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) that was painted during an 1862 journey to the nation's capitol. During the Civil War, the artist recorded battles and activities in various forts and camps in Missouri, publishing his sketches in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly.
Hinchey is known to have traveled through Arkansas at least twice. In 1855 he sketched a group of people camping along the southern bank of the Arkansas River. Twenty-five years later, in November of 1880, he returned to the state and produced a series of drawings in Newport (Jackson County), including works captioned, "Newport," "Barnes' Shop," "Newport Station," and "The White River at Newport." In "Barnes' Shop," Hinchey offers a rare glimpse into the interior of an Arkansas barber shop. The barber, working near a small table beneath a gas-lit wall sconce, tends to a customer as another man looks on. These five Arkansas sketches form part of a collection of seventy-eight works by the artist that descended within his family. In 1974 the collection was exhibited at the St. Louis Art Museum where it now forms part of the institution's permanent collection.
Hinchey died in St. Louis after being thrown from a cable car in 1893.
