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{"Id":1615,"Name":"Thomas Benjamin Kennington","Biography":"Born in Grimsby England on April 7,1856, Thomas Benjamin Kennington trained at an impressive line of schools including the Liverpool School of Art, the South Kensington School of Art, and finally at the Academy Julian with William Bouguereau, Jules Lefebvre, and Tony Robert-Fleury. Throughout his life he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and his work was also seen at the Royal Society of British Arts and the famous Grosvenor Gallery. His work was well appreciated and he even won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EKennington was a social activist who cared deeply about the poor and believed strongly in the artists\u0027 community. He was a founder and first secretary of the New English Art Club whose purpose was to provide exhibition opportunities for artists who were not accepted to show at the Royal Academy or who were dissatisfied with its supremacy. Kennington was also a founder of the Imperial Arts League, which still exists today as The Artist?s League of Great Britain. The Artists\u0027 League was founded in 1909 with the purpose of protecting and promoting the interests of artists in matters of business such as copyrights, contracts, and insurance. Kennington often painted, like many of his contemporaries, the plight of the impoverished and destitute in order to draw attention to the need for social reform. As well, he was a painter of beauty and scenes from everyday life. He also became a well-established portrait artist, painting Queen Victoria (1819-1901) in 1898.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EKennington died in London, December 10, 1916. Today, his paintings can be found in many museums and in public locations throughout England and Australia, including in England, the Tate, Alfred East Art Gallery

English painter

Thomas Benjamin Kennington (7 April 1856 – 10 December 1916) was a British genre, social realist and portrait painter. He was a founder member of the New English Art Club (NEAC) and the Imperial Arts League.

Life and works

Kennington was born in Grimsby in Lincolnshire and trained in art at the Liverpool School of Art (winning a gold medal), the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, and the Académie Julian in Paris, where he studied under Bougereau and Robert-Fleury. He later moved to Chelsea in London.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy, London from 1880 to 1916, and also regularly showed his work at the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in Suffolk Street and the Grosvenor gallery. He was a founder member and first secretary of the New English Art Club (from 1886), and also founded the Imperial Arts League, whose stated purpose was to "protect and promote the interests of Artists and to inform, advise and assist...". He won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889.

Kennington became known not only for his idealised paintings of domestic and everyday-life scenes but also for his social realist works. Paintings such as Orphans (1885, Tate, London), Widowed and fatherless (1885), Homeless (1890), and The pinch of poverty (1891), depicted the harsh realities of life for the poor in Britain in a manner that played on the onlooker's emotions. It has been suggested that he may have been influenced by the Spanish painter Murillo (1618–1682), whose work also featured street children. He painted in both oils and watercolour.

Kennington died in Londo

Identity:

Thomas Benjamin Kennington was a London portrait and genre painter. He was the father of the painter, draughtsman, pastellist and sculptor Eric Henri Kennington.

Life:

Kennington acted as Honorary Secretary of the New English Art Club from 1886 to 1888, the latter date when JW exhibited with the group. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1888, the year in which JW was forced to resign his Presidency of the Society, and sat on the Committee for Selection and Supervision (#05324). In 1889 Kennington entered the membership of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, becoming its Vice President in 1908. In 1891 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

Kennington specialised in upper class society scenes, particularly involving mothers and children. Between 1880 and 1916 he exhibited in London at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, Grosvenor Gallery, New Gallery and New English Art Club, as well as at the Royal Scottish Academy, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Royal Hibernian Academy, Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham, Manchester City Art Gallery and Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. He also exhibited at the International Exhibitions in Paris and Rome.

In 1889 Kennington was amongst those proposed invitees to a dinner organised by W. C. Symons to congratulate JW on becoming an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Munich, a dinner which was to be held at the Criterion in Piccadilly on 1 May (#00631).

Bibliography:

Wood, Christopher, Dictionary of Victorian Painters, Woodbridge, 1971; Johnson, J., and A. Gruetzner, Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Woodbridge, 1980; http://www.getty.edu/research (accessed 2003).

Biography

Born on 7 April 1856 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, Thomas Benjamin Kennington studied at the Liverpool School of Art, moving on to the Royal College of Art, and the Académie Julian in Paris. On his return to England he established himself in Chelsea, and enjoyed a successful career as a painter in oils and water colours, winning a reputation as a portraitist and genre painter. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1880, and in 1886 achieved prominence as a founding member and first Secretary of the New English Art Club. Members of this group chose their own paintings for their exhibitions, which were originally held at the Egyptian House in Piccadilly, and reflected developments in Paris — notably Impressionism. According to one account:

Kennington was best known in the early part of his career for his social realist subjects executed in a French-style, with square brushwork and a muted tonal range. In Victorian painting, the theme of family life featured strongly and lessons were to be drawn from art works. They were visual puzzles to be worked out. Domestic scenes provided models of how adults and children should behave. Some of Kennington's work took the genre of "pathetic realism" to a level not achieved by his predecessors and frankly, can be considered harrowing. ["Kennington, Thomas Benjamin"]

His best-known work is probably Orphans (1885), which is in the Tate in London, but others such as Widowed and Fatherless (1888), The Pinch of Poverty (1889) and Homeless (1890) are also well known. He was commissioned by benefactors to produce a series of such works to promote their charitable causes, but there was an artistic source as well: in the choice of subject and the "rich colouring, smooth handling of paint, and subject" of such paintings he is felt to have been inspired by the seventeenth-century Spanish artist, Murillo ("Orphans").

Kennington himself was an inspiration to others, as a member of the St John's Wood clique, a group of