The son and pupil of the wallpaper painter and landscapist Theodorus Hekking (1766-1819), Willem Hekking also studied with Anthonie van den Bosch. Although he began his career as a painter of wall hangings, he became best known as a watercolour draughtsman and painter, exhibiting highly finished still life subjects of flowers and fruit in Amsterdam and Rotterdam between 1813 and 1838.

Among his pupils were Marina Adriana Maria van Toulon and Anna Maria Veeren. His son and pupil, Willem Hekking the Younger (1825-1904) worked as a landscape draughtsman, lithographer and painter in Amsterdam. Watercolours by the elder Hekking are in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Teylers Museum in Haarlem and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.