Born at Hanging Heaton, near Dewsbury in 1862, Mark Senior is famous for his involvement with the Staithes artists, who painted the small fishing village of Staithes and its inhabitants on the north-east Yorkshire coast. He gained admission to the Wakefield School of Art in 1880 and continued his studies with Isaac Faulkner Bird in Leeds. This was followed by occasional classes at the Slade, where his encounters with Whistler, Philip Wilson Steer, Henry Tonks and Fred Brown introduced him to developments in contemporary French painting. Thus his pictures have a cosmopolitan feel, which equates with those of his better known contemporaries and friends. His pictures were exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1892 to 1924.

Mark Senior had a range of patrons including Sam Wilson, a Leeds worsted coat manufacturer. Together with Sir George Clausen he advised Wilson in building up one of the most important collections of ‘turn of the century’ English art. This is now housed at Leeds City Art Gallery. His generosity to his fellow artists was publicly recognised by Rowland Hill…”Mark Senior was one of those men for whom everybody had a great deal of affection and he often helped his fellow painters in a practical way.” (Seaside Colony of Painters, Yorkshire Evening Post, 30th August 1939)