The Face of Courage: Eric Kennington, Portraiture and the Second World War

Eric Kennington (1888–1960) was one of the most talented British portraitists of the twentieth century. His penetrat- ing charcoal and pastel portraits were greatly admired by many of his leading artistic contemporaries including Wyndham Lewis, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Henry Moore, Augustus John, William Orpen and John Singer Sargent. His draughtsmanship was held in high regard by famous contemporaries in many fields and he could count as friends: T.E. Lawrence; Robert Graves; Siegfried Sassoon; George Bernard Shaw; J.B. Priestley; Kenneth Clark; John Rothenstein; Basil Liddell Hart; Julian Huxley and H.E. Bates.
This is the first book to focus on some of the nearly 230 works he produced during the Second World War, firstly as an official war artist working for Kenneth Clark’s War Artists’ Advisory Committee at the Ministry of Information and then in a semi-official capacity for the Ministry of Labour, the War Office and London Transport. The majority of his drawings were portraits but also included are examples of his attractive landscapes as well as haunting symbolic works inspired by powerful feelings evoked in wartime and the individuals in uniform he met. The book draws on a rich vein of unpublished archival material and documentation while including imagery that has not been reproduced in over half a century as well as works which have never hitherto appeared in colour.
The portraits are accompanied by enthralling stories of supposedly ordinary men and women who displayed the most extraordinary physical, mental and moral courage when confronted by the challenge of Total War.

Dr. Jonathan Black was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and London. His PhD was awarded for a study of the First World War art of Eric Kennington, C.R.W. Nevinson and Charles Sargeant Jagger c. 1915–1925. He has published widely about various aspects of early twentieth century Western European art history as well as on the careers of: Kennington; Nevinson; Jagger; Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; Dora Gordine and Hans Schleger. Publications include: Form, Feeling and Calculation: The Complete Paintings and Drawings of Edward Wadsworth (London, 2006); Dora Gordine: Sculptor, Artist, Designer (London, 2008) and an essay exploring Kennington’s friendship with T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia: Genesis of a Myth (Mainz, 2010). He is the curator of the exhibition The Face of Courage: Eric Kennington, Portraiture and the Second World War, Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon (June 2011–June 2012). He is currently Senior Research Fellow in History of Art at Kingston University and is researching a study of sculptor Ivor Roberts-Jones (1913–1996).