Thomas Benjamin Kennington was an English genre, social realist and portrait painter.
Background
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 (Radio Corporation of America) in London, and the Académie Julian in Paris, where he studied under Bougereau and Robert-Fleury.
Career
He later moved to Chelsea in London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, London from 1880–1916, and also regularly showed his work at the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in Suffolk Street and the Grosvenor gallery. 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. lieutenant 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 London on 10 December 1916.