Wilfrid de Glehn (1870–1951) was a British painter with a distinctly cosmopolitan upbringing. Born in 1870 in Sydenham, London, and educated at Brighton College, the Royal College of Art, and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he was fluent in French and deeply shaped by time spent in both England and France. Early in his career he met John Singer Sargent while assisting, alongside Edwin Austin Abbey, on the Boston Public Library murals, a collaboration that grew into a lifelong friendship grounded in shared artistic values and international outlook.

In 1903, while working in the United States on the Boston murals, Wilfrid met American painter Jane Emmet, whom he married in 1904. The couple became close companions of Sargent and traveled extensively together, particularly in Europe. During World War II, their London home and studios at Cheyne Walk were destroyed by bombing, prompting a permanent move to Stratford Tony, Wiltshire, in 1942. Wilfrid de Glehn died there in 1951; Jane survived him by ten years.