Early life Kennington was born in
Chelsea, London, the second son of the
genre and portrait painter,
Thomas Benjamin Kennington (1856–1916), a founder member of the
New English Art Club. He was educated at
St Paul's School and the
Lambeth School of Art. Kennington first exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1908. At the
International Society in April 1914 Kennington exhibited a series of paintings and drawings of
costermongers which sold well and allowed him to set up a studio off
Kensington High Street in London.
First World War '' (1915) (Art.IWM ART 15661) , the commanding officer of
16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish), CEF At the start of
World War I, Kennington enlisted with the
13th (Kensington) Battalion London Regiment on 6 August 1914. He fought on the
Western Front, but was wounded in January 1915 and evacuated back to England. Kennington was injured while attempting to clear a friend's jammed rifle and he lost one toe and was fortunate not to lose a foot due to infection. When exhibited in the spring of 1916, its portrayal of exhausted soldiers caused a sensation. Painted in reverse on glass, the painting is now in the
Imperial War Museum and was widely praised for its technical virtuosity, iconic colour scheme, and its "stately presentation of human endurance, of the quiet heroism of the rank and file". Kennington visited the Somme in December 1916 as a semi-official artist visitor before, back in London, producing six lithographs under the title
Making Soldiers for the Ministry of Information's ''Britain's Efforts and Ideals'' portfolio of images which were exhibited in Britain and abroad and were also sold as prints to raise money for the war effort. In May 1917 he accepted an official war artist commission from the
Department of Information. Kennington was commissioned to spend a month on the Western Front but he applied for numerous extensions and eventually spent seven and a half months in France. Kennington was originally based at the
Third Army Headquarters and would spend time at the front lines near
Villers-Faucon. Later during this tour, his friend
William Rothenstein was also appointed as a war artist and they worked together at
Montigny Farm and at
Devise on the
Somme, where they often came under shell-fire. Whereas Kennington was working for neither salary nor expenses and had no official car or staff, Orpen was given the rank of major, had his own military aide, a car and driver, plus, at his own expense, a batman and assistant to accompany him. During his time in France, Kennington produced 170 charcoal,
pastel and watercolours before returning to London in March 1918. Whilst in France in 1918, Kennington was admitted to a
Casualty Clearing Station at
Tincourt-Boucly to be treated for
trench fever. There he made a number of sketches and drawings of men injured during the bombardment that preceded the German
1918 Spring Offensive. Some of these drawings became the basis of the completed painting
Gassed and Wounded. Throughout June and July 1918 an exhibition of Kennington's work, "The British Soldier", was held in London and received great reviews and some public acclaim. Despite this, Kennington was unhappy in his dealings with Department of Information, mainly concerning the censoring of his paintings, and he resigned his war artist commission with the British. In November 1918 Kennington was commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Scheme to depict Canadian troops in Europe. That month he returned to France as a temporary first lieutenant attached to the
16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish), CEF. The eight months Kennington spent in Germany, Belgium and France, working for the Canadians, resulted in some seventy drawings. In 1966, when the library's mezzanine floor was constructed, a large crack formed and was subsequently painted to disguise the damage. In 1922, Kennington married Edith Cecil, daughter of Lord Francis Horace Pierrepont Cecil (who was second son of
William Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Exeter), with whom he had a son and a daughter. Edith, who was already married to William Hanbury-Tracy (5th Baron Sudeley), fell in love with Kennington while he was painting her husband's picture. They both remained good friends with Edith's ex-husband.
1930s Throughout the late 1920s and the 1930s, Kennington produced a number of notable public sculptures, • September 1926; a bronze bust of T. E. Lawrence which in 1936 was unveiled in the crypt of
St Paul's Cathedral • July 1929; three nine foot high stone figures of British soldiers for the
Imperial War Graves Commission Memorial to the Missing, the
Soissons Memorial • 1931;
statue of
Thomas Hardy which was unveiled in Dorchester by
J. M. Barrie on 2 September that year • September 1931; a series of five allegorical reliefs, entitled
Love,
Jollity,
Treachery,
War and
Life & Death, on the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre building in Stratford on Avon. • December 1936; the Comet Inn pillar,
Hatfield, Hertfordshire • 1937-1939; a life-sized
tomb effigy in Portland stone, of T. E. Lawrence for
St Martin's Church, Wareham, Dorset.
Second World War By November 1938 Kennington was certain that another World War was inevitable and he approached the
Home Office with a proposal to establish a group to design camouflage schemes for large public buildings. Alongside
Richard Carline,
Leon Underwood and others he worked in a section attached to the
Air Raid Precautions Department of the Home Office until war broke out. Kennington next spent some time at
Bomber Command bases in Norfolk before moving to
RAF Ringway near Manchester where the
Parachute Regiment were training. Although over-age, Kennington undertook at least one parachute jump at Ringwood. In September 1941 he self-published an illustrated booklet,
Pilots, Workers, Machines to great acclaim. Some 52 of Kennington's
RAF portraits were published in a 1942 WAAC book,
Drawing the RAF. This was followed in 1943 with
Tanks and Tank Folk, illustrations from Kennington's time with the
11th Armoured Division near
Ripon in Yorkshire. In 1945 Kennington supplied the illustrations for ''Britain's Home Guard'' by
John Brophy. Darracott and Loftus describe how in both wars "his drawings and letters show him to be an admirer of the heroism of ordinary men and women", an admiration which is particularly notable in the poster series "Seeing it Through", with poems by
A. P. Herbert, a personal friend of his.
Post-war career By the time the war ended over forty of the RAF pilots and aircrew whose portraits Kennington had painted had been killed in action. Kennington resolved to create a suitable memorial for them and over the next ten years, whilst also working on sculpture and portrait commissions, he patiently carved
1940, a column with the head of an RAF pilot topped by the Archangel Michael with a lance slaying a dragon. His last work, which was completed on his death by his assistant Eric Stanford, was a stone relief panel that decorates the James Watt South Building in the
University of Glasgow. Kennington is buried in the churchyard in
Checkendon, Oxfordshire, where he was churchwarden, and is commemorated on a memorial in
Brompton Cemetery, London. ==References==