Cornelius Hankins, landscape, portrait and still-life painter, was born around 1864 in Guntown, Mississippi to Reverend Edward Lockee Hankins and Annie Mary McFadden. The sixth of eight children, he was deaf until the age of eight as a result of smallpox. In his early twenties, he studied in Nashville with Professor E.M. Gardner who founded the Nashville Art Association and had close ties with Watkins School of Design.

While studying in Nashville, Hankins taught art at Miss Clark's Select School for Girls in nearby Rutherford County. In the late 1890s, he spent a few years teaching and working in Richmond, Virginia. While there, he was commissioned to paint portraits of twelve Confederate genera...