Charles Keene was one of a small group of mid-Victorian draughtsmen, among them John Tenniel and George du Maurier, who was responsible for greatly improving the quality of British illustration during the 1860s and 1870s. Untrained, but with pre-Raphaelite devotion to studying from nature, Keene became the strongest black and white artist of his time contributing not only to Punch, but to many of the other periodicals of the gay such as Once a Week. Almost alone among these men, Keene obtained an international reputation and was widely admired in America and Europe. The American artist James McNeil Whistler described Keene as 'the greatest artist since Hogarth'. Edgar Degas owned his books and Camille Pissaro recommended him to his son Lucien.