39 Facts About Eric Kennington

Eric Henri Kennington was an English sculptor, artist and illustrator, and an official war artist in both of the world wars.

Eric Kennington was a gifted sculptor, best known for his 24th Division War Memorial in Battersea Park, for his work on the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and for the effigy of Lawrence at Wareham in Dorset.

Eric Kennington was born in Chelsea, London, the second son of the genre and portrait painter, Thomas Benjamin Eric Kennington, a founder member of the New English Art Club.

Eric Kennington was educated at St Paul's School and the Lambeth School of Art.

At the International Society in April 1914 Eric 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.

At the start of World War I, Eric Kennington enlisted with the 13th Battalion London Regiment on 6 August 1914.

Eric Kennington fought on the Western Front, but was wounded in January 1915 and evacuated back to England.

Eric 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.

Eric Kennington spent four months in hospital before being discharged as unfit in June 1915.

Eric Kennington himself is the figure third from the left, wearing a balaclava.

Eric 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 sold as prints to raise money for the war effort.

Eric 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.

Eric Kennington was originally based at the Third Army Headquarters and would spend time at the front lines near Villers-Faucon.

Eric Kennington spent most of his time painting portraits, which he was happy to do, but became increasingly concerned about his lack of access to the front line and that the official censor was removing the names of his portrait subjects.

Whereas Eric 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.

Eric Kennington could be aggressive and irritable and at times complained bitterly about his situation, claiming he must have been the cheapest artist employed by the Government and that "Bone had a commission and Orpen had a damned good time".

Whilst in France in 1918, Eric Kennington was admitted to a Casualty Clearing Station at Tincourt-Boucly to be treated for trench fever.

In November 1918 Eric Kennington was commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Scheme to depict Canadian troops in Europe.

The eight months Eric Kennington spent in Germany, Belgium and France, working for the Canadians, resulted in some seventy drawings.

At an exhibition of his war art in London, Kennington met T E Lawrence who became a great influence on him.

Eric Kennington spent the first half of 1921 travelling through Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine drawing portraits of Arab subjects.

Years later, in 1935, Eric Kennington was to serve as one of the six pallbearers at Lawrence's funeral.

In 1922 Eric Kennington began to experiment with stone carving and soon undertook his first public commission, the War Memorial to the 24th Division in Battersea Park which was unveiled in October 1924.

However, due to the prominent display of male genitalia, the trustees of the School would not allow it to be placed above the School's entrance unless Eric Kennington added a well placed loin cloth.

Eric Kennington refused and the work was placed above the entrance of the library where it remains.

In 1922, Eric Kennington married Edith Cecil, daughter of Lord Francis Horace Pierrepont Cecil, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

At the start of the Second World War, Eric Kennington produced a number of pastel portraits of Royal Navy officers for the War Artists' Advisory Committee, on short-term contracts.

Eric Kennington painted a portrait of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound.

Pound was seriously ill when Eric Kennington sketched him and although the Admiralty were pleased with the image they refused permission for it to be displayed until after Pound died in October 1943.

Eric Kennington next painted several younger seamen, several of whom had survived shipwrecks.

Eric Kennington joined the newly formed Home Guard and was given command of a six-man section at Ipsden.

Eric Kennington next spent some time at Bomber Command bases in Norfolk before moving to RAF Ringway near Manchester where the Parachute Regiment were training.

Eric Kennington continued to travel around Britain to produce hundreds of portraits of Allied flight crew and other service personnel until September 1942 when he resigned his commission because he felt that WAAC were failing to capitalise on the propaganda value of his work in their publications and posters.

In 1945 Eric Kennington supplied the illustrations for Britain's Home Guard by John Brophy.

Eric Kennington resolved to create a suitable memorial for them and over the next ten years, whilst 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.

In 1946 Eric Kennington was appointed as the official portrait painter to the Worshipful Company of Skinners.

In 1951 Eric Kennington became an associate member of the Academy and was elected a full academician in 1959.

Eric Kennington's 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.

Eric Kennington is buried in the churchyard in Checkendon, Oxfordshire, where he was churchwarden, and is commemorated on a memorial in Brompton Cemetery, London.