Thomas Benjamin Kennington

British 1856-1916

Thomas Benjamin Kennington was a British genre, social realist and portrait painter.

He was born in the Lincolnshire fishing port of Grimsby on 07 April 1856 and trained in art at the Liverpool School of Art where he won a gold medal. Also at the Royal College of Art in London and the Académie Julian in Paris where he studied under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony-Robert Fleury.

After moving to Chelsea, Kennington exhibited frequently from 1880 to 1916 at the Royal Academy. He would also regularly show his work at the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street and the Grosvenor Gallery.

A founder member and first secretary of the New English Art Club in 1885, Kennington also founded the Imperial Arts League in 1909, whose stated purpose was to “protect and promote the interests of Artists and to inform, advise and assist...”.

Kennington won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889.

Painting in both oils and watercolours, Kennington became known not only for his idealised paintings of domestic and everyday-life scenes but also for his social realist works.

Kennington was disturbed by the poverty he saw around him and decided to highlight the harsh realities of the poor in Britain through his art. His 1890 painting Homeless was sent to Melbourne in 1892 for the Anglo-German exhibition which was held in Melbourne’s exhibition centre. In 1906 the painting was purchased by the Bendigo Art Gallery in Australia where it still hangs today.

Kennington was also an accomplished portraitist with many of his portraits featuring family members. In 1883, aged twenty-seven, he married twenty-two year old Swedish Elise Stevani. Together they would have a daughter, Anne and a son, Eric. Anne would appear in several of Kennington’s portraits.

Kennington died in London on 10 December 1916 aged sixty. His son Eric Kennington (1888–1960) was also an artist, illustrator and sculptor.