Eric Henri Kennington (1888–1960)

Painter, draughtsman and sculptor born 12 March 1888 in Chelsea (see ‘Note’, below). He studied at the South London Technical School of Art, 1906–08 (where his father, the painter T. B. Kennington, was a visiting tutor), and achieved early success painting portraits, cockney types, and London scenes. Kennington enlisted for service in the First World War, but was invalided out in 1915, later returning to the front as an official war artist (a service he performed again during the Second World War). His first solo exhibition was at the Goupil Galleries, London, 1917 (drawings only); his first to include sculpture was at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1924. According to Jonathan Black, it is probable that Kennington decided to try his hand at sculpture after seeing an exhibition of Eric Gill drawings at the Goupil Gallery in 1918. His first attempt was a low-relief panel in plaster, Poor Bloody Infantry (1920; Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA). In 1919, Kennington met and became friends with T.E. Lawrence. At Lawrence’s request, Kennington accompanied him on his trip to the Middle East and drew portraits of the Arabs Lawrence had fought alongside during the Arab revolt of 1916–18; the results were used to illustrate the book Lawrence was writing, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (published 1926). Of great importance to Kennington’s development as a sculptor was seeing ancient Egyptian architectural sculptures in situ for the first time. Their impact is most clearly evidenced in the carved faces of the three soldiers in his first public sculpture, a memorial to his old regiment, the 24th Infantry Division (c.1922–24) in Battersea Park, south London. Among his other sculptures in public places are the main figure group in G.H. Holt and V.O. Rees’s Memorial to the Missing at Soissons, France (1925–28); a plaster relief panel over the library entrance, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, Gower Street (1928–29); the statue of Thomas Hardy, bronze, Dorchester, Dorset (1929–31); five carved brick reliefs for the façade of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (1931–32); Comet Hotel pub sign (a Portland stone pillar), Hatfield, Hertfordshire (1936); the recumbent effigy of T. E. Lawrence, Portland stone, St Martin’s Church, Wareham, Dorset (1935–39); Learning, a high relief in Portland stone over the entrance to the Harold Cohen Library, University of Liverpool (1938); and Progress of Science, a carved Portland stone panel for the James Watt Engineering Block, Glasgow University (1957–60; completed after Kennington’s death in April 1960 by his assistant, Eric Stanford, the following August). Kennington was elected Associate Royal Academician in 1951 and RA in 1959. Posthumous exhibitions of his work were held at the Imperial War Museum, 1980; Maas Gallery, London, 1981; Gillian Jason Gallery, London, 1985; and Leeds City Art Gallery and Strang Print Room, University College, London, both 2001. Examples of his work are held in the Tate (The Earth Child, 1933–34); National Portrait Gallery (Bust of T.E. Lawrence, 1926); Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (The Male Child, c.1928–29, and The War God, 1933–35; on long loan from the family of the artist); Imperial War Museum (maquettes for 24th Infantry Division Memorial and Soissons Memorial to the Missing); Reading Museum and Art Gallery (St Christopher, 1933); and Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset (maquette for the Royal Armoured Corps Memorial, 1949–50).

Note: Kennington’s place of birth is given as Chelsea in ‘London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813–1923’, ‘England and Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index 1837–1915’ and The Times, 16 April 1960, p. 8 (obit.). Whittet, in DNB (1971), follows these sources but Freeman, in ODNB (2004, 2009), unaccountably gives Kennington’s place of birth as Liverpool.

Bibliography: J. Black, The Sculpture of Eric Kennington, Much Hadham, Herts, 2002; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Liverpool, Liverpool, 1997, pp. 219, 331; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. xx, 283–87, 443; J. Freeman, ‘Kennington, Eric Henri (1888–1960)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004), 2009; R. McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow, Liverpool, 2002, pp. 402–04, 488; Mapping Sculpture; G.T. Noszlopy, Public Sculpture of Warwickshire, Coventry & Solihull, Liverpool, 2003, pp. xxiii, 25, 67–69, 259–60; The Studio, August 1936, pp. 79–85 (‘In the studio of Eric Kennington: the man and his work’); The Times, 16 April 1960, p. 8 (obit.); G.S. Whittet, ‘Kennington, Eric Henri (1888–1960)’, Dictionary of National Biography, 1971.

Terry Cavanagh, 2007; revised, August 2024