Henry Stacy Marks RA (13 September 1829 – 9 January 1898) was a British artist who took a particular interest in Shakespearean and medieval themes in his early career and later in decorative art depicting birds and ornithologists as well as landscapes.

Henry studied in small schools near Regent's Park and at Eythorne, Kent where he learned to paint heraldry symbols so as to assist his father in his carriage making business.

He however decided to move to Paris with his friend Philip Hermogenes Calderon to study at the atelier of François Edouard Picot and the École des Beaux-Arts.

He returned in June 1852, leaving Calderon in Paris and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1853, painting a scene from Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing: Dogberry Examining Conrad and Borachio.

[2] Marks' father emigrated to Australia leaving Henry to support his mother, three brothers and from October 1856, his wife, Helen Drysdale (1829–1892).

These included the Minton works, for the stained-glass manufacturers Clayton and Bell, by designing a frieze for the outside wall of the Royal Albert Hall, and for the house of the artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

His early works on medieval themes included Toothache in the Middle Ages (1856) which was bought by the publisher Charles Edward Mudie with whom he became a friend.

For this purpose he painted two canvasses 35 feet (11 m) long of Chaucer's pilgrims in the saloon, and twelve panels of birds in the drawing room.

"In making studies of the birds, I went to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons to take measurements of the bones, their proportionate length, &c. When I had obtained what information I needed, I came away, and crossing Lincoln's Inn Fields, it struck me that the occupation in which I had been engaged would furnish a good subject for the picture."

To paint this picture he asked for advice on obtaining a skeleton of the adjutant stork from Sir William Flower that could be kept at home so that he could study it at leisure.

Flower suggested a taxidermy artist and skeleton preparer in Camden Town who supplied him with a suitable specimen.

The title was decided after much discussion with artists and scientists and he submitted it as his diploma picture for the Royal Academy of Arts.

[5] Abraham Dee Bartlett, superintendent at the London zoo, encouraged him to draw birds with accuracy rather than colour them with anthropomorphism.

[2] In an interview to Strand Magazine in 1891 he recalled with his typical wit an anecdote:[7] "I took home a picture to the Dook of Wellington one day, and, as I was taking it up in the hall, he comes by, and says, "Oh, you comes from Messrs.

[2] The Victoria and Albert Museum holds three of Marks' finished watercolour studies of birds and eleven sketches for larger paintings.