Eric Kennington

Resting at Infantrymen

Eric Henry Kennington (born March 12, 1888 in London , † April 13, 1960 in Reading ) was an English painter, sculptor and portraitist. He was an official martial artist in World Wars I and II and is best known for his works on the everyday occurrences in the lives of common soldiers.

biography

Early life

Eric Kennington was born as the second son of Thomas Benjamin Kennington (1856-1916) and his Swedish wife Elise Nilla Lindahl Steveni (1861-1895). His father was a portrait artist and an active member of the New English Art Club . Kennington attended St. Paul's School and the Lambeth School of Art. He had his first major art exhibition in 1908 at the Royal Academy in London. After the outbreak of World War I , Kennington enrolled in the British Army and became part of the 13th London Regiment.

First World War

The Kensingtons at Laventie (1915)

Kennington was involved with the 13th Battalion in battles on the Western Front in France from November 1914 to January 1915 . When he sustained a serious injury in January 1915 in which he lost a toe, he was treated in hospital for months until he was transferred back to England in June 1915. His first work, which depicts events from the war, was created during his recovery period. The Kensingtons at Laventie portrays the frontline experiences of the 13th London Regiment, nicknamed The Kensingtons . The Kensingtons at Laventie shows Kenningtons unit drained in the snow after a long march. Shortly after the first exhibition, the work received mostly positive reviews. It became one of Kennington's most famous works.

After the painting was published, Kennington was again invited to a war zone, namely the Somme region. This time, however, no longer as a soldier at the front, but rather as an artist visit. A short time later he had a first exhibition of his war art in the Goupil Gallery in London. In May 1917 he accepted his first position as an official martial artist, which was offered to him by the Department of Information. In August 1917, Kennington was sent back to France as an official martial artist. There he mainly painted with charcoal and pastel , as he could work faster with these materials and thus complete a portrait of a soldier within two hours. During his seven and a half months in France, Kennington was able to complete around 170 drawings. These drawings were exhibited in the Leicester Galleries in June and July 1918 with the assistance of the Ministry of Information.

The Conquerers (1920)

Kennington resigned from his position with the Ministry of Information in September 1918. He was no longer satisfied with the job and gave another reason that he was still suffering from trench fever. Nevertheless, he started a new job just two months later. He became part of the Canadian War Memorial Scheme and accompanied the Canadian 16th Battalion to France. He accompanied the unit between November 1918 and March 1919. During this time he was able to carry out over 40 individual studies on the soldiers. In early 1920, Kennington painted a new picture called The Conquerers , a tribute to the Canadian soldiers of the 16th Battalion. The publication of this work again brought Kennington a lot of attention and the critics were delighted. Shortly after the publication of this work, the art critic Frank Rutter wrote in the Sunday Times :

"Kennington is one of our foremost potrait painters." - "Kennington is one of our greatest portrait artists."

Kennington exhibited the work in the Alpine Club Gallery in London, one of the visitors to the exhibition was the British military TE Lawrence , who convinced Kennington to accompany him to the Middle East .

War Memorial Battersea Park (1924)

1920s

From February to June 1921, Kennington traveled through Egypt , Lebanon , Syria and Palestine , drawing pictures on Arabic subjects and people. TE Lawrence was delighted with the pictures. Subsequently, some of them were printed in Lawrence's book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom . Kennington began work on his first sculptures in 1922, three of which were exhibited in Battersea Park in London from 1924. Since then, Kennington has increasingly worked as a sculptor and has also called himself that. He still took portraits, but only to cover the cost of his sculptures. During this time he produced around two to three pastel portraits per month on request, for each of which he could charge 40 to 50 pounds. The further years of the 1920s were still characterized by his work as a sculptor.

1930s

Sculpture for TE Lawrence (1939)

Kennington continued to work as a sculptor until TE Lawrence's death in 1935. Kennington was one of the pallbearers at Lawrence's funeral as their friendship has lasted since their trip to Arabia. Therefore, for the next four years after Lawrence's death, until 1939, Kennington worked on a sculpture that would become a tribute to his friend Lawrence. Since 1935, Kennington was also convinced that World War II was coming. He campaigned with many acquaintances in the military to prepare for war. In 1936 he exhibited the most important works of his last 20 years as an artist and enjoyed a reputation among critics for being one of the most important and talented portrait artists of the time. At the end of 1938, Eric Kennington began to develop camouflages for buildings with other artists in order to be able to protect strategically important buildings during war. Nevertheless, he was already aware at the time that these preparations were taking place too late:

"My great fear is that we will remain powerless until too late when there will be the usual hysteria and confusion and of course we are already a year too late." - “My great fear is that we will remain powerless until it is too late, until the big, usual mess begins. And of course we're a year too late. "

Shortly before the start of the war, Kennington was again part of the War Artist Advisory Committee and was supposed to paint war portraits from pastel and charcoal again. So he was an official martial artist again.

Second World War

Learoyd (1940)

In May 1940, however, he resigned from his position as a martial artist and joined the Home Guard (Local Defense Volunteers), since, according to his statement, he was able to participate more in the war. From July 1940 he was head of a unit with six members in Oxfordshire , where they defended a post. However, the units were unmotivated and did not show up and, according to Kennington, preferred to play cards in the pub or go fishing. The unit was also not armed. Despite Kennington's resignation from the War Artist Advisory Committee , his works were the focus of the war drawings exhibition in 1940, as he was by far the most famous artist the committee could show.

In retrospect, the War Artist Advisory Committee tried again to reinstall Kennington, which is why he worked as a martial artist again from September 1940. He was assigned to paint portraits of key Royal Air Force officers . He fulfilled this task until he resigned from his job as a martial artist on the War Artist Advisory Committee in September 1942, this time also because of criticism of himself . He then worked for the War Office, where Kennington continued to draw portraits. However, he was given the task of painting the Home Guard soldiers . So he traveled through Great Britain and devoted himself to his art on English soil. He kept this job until the end of the war.

Time after World War II

Kennington worked on a memorial for the fallen soldiers of the Royal Air Force after the end of World War II . In addition, he repeatedly took on orders as a portrait draftsman, now also from private individuals. In 1946 Kennington took over the position of official portrait artist for the Worshipful Company of Skinners, for which he produced nine pastel portraits. These were exhibited at the Royal Academy . In 1951, Kennington became part of the Royal Academy and in 1959 he was made a full member. The last work by Eric Kennington is a stone tablet that can be found in the James Watt South Building in the University of Glasgow . Eric Stanton finished this work after Kennington passed away in 1960. Kennington was buried in Checkendon, Oxfordshire.

reception

Kennington was one of the most important British martial artists of his day, both in World War I and World War II. At least since the first exhibition of The Kensingtons at Laventie and The Conquerers he achieved great fame. He has often been described as an artist who can realistically portray the dark side of the war. Later he came under criticism because he only drew portraits of officers who were often depicted heroically. According to his critics, he rarely portrayed the realistic side of the war. He often criticized this fact himself, above all he was often dissatisfied when he was supposed to draw "old" military men. Kennington had very high-ranking friends and acquaintances in the military, which is why he was a very influential man. He was also considered a very difficult character, which explains the many different positions in different ministries and institutions.

literature

• Jonathan Black: The face of courage. Eric Kennington, portraiture and the second World War. Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-85667-705-2
• Jonathan Black: The Sculpture of Eric Kennington. Henry Moore Foundation / Lund Humphries, 2002, ISBN 978-0-85331-823-1
• Shafquat Towheed, Edmund King: Reading and the First World War. Readers, texts, archives. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2015, ISBN 978-1-137-30270-0

Web links

• Imperial War Museum: Eric Kennington . Retrieved February 13, 2018
• 16 images by Eric Kennington: Art UK , accessed February 13, 2018

credentials

1. ↑ Eric Kennington: Biography . In: Spartacus Educational . September 1997 ( spartacus-educational.com [accessed January 25, 2018]).
2. ^ ^{A b} Jonathan Black: The face of courage. Eric Kennington, portraiture and the second World War . Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-85667-705-2 , pp. 11-12 .
3. ↑ The Kensingtons at Laventie. Imperial War Museum, January 25, 2018, accessed January 25, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Jonathan Black: The face of courage. Eric Kennington, portraiture and the second World War . Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-85667-705-2 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} NationalArmyMuseumUK: Portraits Like Bombs: Eric Kennington and the Second World War. April 16, 2012, accessed January 26, 2018 . 
6. ↑ 'Head of TE Lawrence', Eric Kennington, 1926 . In: Tate . September 2004 ( org.uk [accessed March 2, 2018]).
7. ^ Battersea Park, London: Trouserless Tommies, World War One At Home. Retrieved March 2, 2018 (UK English). 
8. ↑ Jonathan Black: The face of courage. Eric Kennington, portraiture and the second World War . Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-85667-705-2 , pp. 17th ff .