Henry Wallis was an English painter, writer, collector, and loosely connected to the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

He studied at F. S. Cary’s academy and in 1848 entered the Royal Academy Schools, London. He is also thought to have trained in Paris at some time in the late 1840s or early 1850s, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

He specialized in portraits of literary figures and scenes from the lives of past writers. His first great success was the "Death of Chatterton", which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856.

Although Wallis was not considered a major part of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, his method and style reveal the importance of that connection, using vibrant colors and careful build-up of symbolic detail.