Menpes studied art at the Royal College of Art in London and held his first exhibition of etchings at the Royal Academy in 1880. He was one of the first artists in Britain to be inspired by Japan. He was a friend of the Australian novelist Rosa Praed and collaborated with her and Justin McCarthy on a book about the Thames River, The Grey River (Seeley and Co., 1889). He decorated a home for Praed in London and taught Praed's daughter, Maud, to paint.

(Source: 'Two Colonials in London's Bohemia : Rosa Praed and Mortimer Menpes' by Patricia Clarke National Library of Australia News, September, 2003)