Henry Hanke (1901-1989) was born in Sydney in 1901. He was an Australian painter and teacher, who won the Archibald Prize in 1934 with a self-portrait, and the inaugural Sulman Prize in 1936 with his painting 'La Gitana'.
Hanke was a war artist during the Second World War, during which he completed many paintings in New Guinea. He was the first war artist into Milne Bay after the Australians inflicted the first defeat on Japanese troops in World War Two. Hanke was later made a director of the Royal Art Society art school.
Hanke was a friend of Sydney artists Graeme Inson and Ivy Shore, and often visited them. Hanke was one of the five artists Ivy Shore (winner of the Portia Geach Memorial Art Award in 1979) called her "Inspirations". Ivy Shore's painting of these five artists, titled "Inspirations", now hangs in the Dundee Arms Hotel in Sussex Street, Sydney, which was Graeme Inson and Ivy Shore's studio in the 1970s and 1980s.