George Kennethson

George Kennethson (1910–1994) was a British sculptor whose work is distinguished by direct carving in stone, compact forms and a strong sensitivity to the character of his materials. Although initially trained as a painter, he turned increasingly to sculpture during the 1930s and thereafter devoted himself principally to carving, working especially in English limestone, alabaster and other native stones.

Born in Richmond upon Thames, Kennethson studied at St John’s Wood School of Art from 1927 and at the Royal Academy Schools from 1929 to 1932. His early painting was influenced by Cézanne, but by the mid-1930s he had begun making small terracotta models and carving directly in stone. He was drawn to the work of sculptors including Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Brancusi and Henry Moore, as well as to non-Western and so-called ‘primitive’ sculpture.

Regular visits to the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset strengthened his interest in the relationship between sculpture, landscape and the physical qualities of stone. Natural forms, birds, waves and the human figure recur throughout his work, often reduced to highly simplified, interlocking masses. Kennethson believed strongly that a material should retain its own identity, and described sculpture in terms of the relationship between “planes, masses, weights and proportions” rather than illusionistic representation.

In 1954 Kennethson moved with his wife, the painter and textile designer Eileen Guthrie, and their family to Oundle, where he became Art Master at Oundle School. In 1959 he bought a former brewery in the town and converted it into a studio and home. Much of his subsequent work was made there, usually on an intimate scale, allowing him to explore the tactile and structural possibilities of stone with great concentration.

Kennethson developed an important friendship with Jim and Helen Ede of Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. Ede acquired several of his sculptures, including Construction (Birds), and helped to bring his work to wider attention. Kettle’s Yard presented solo exhibitions of Kennethson’s sculpture and drawings in 1972 and 1975, and his work remains part of the collection there.

Other exhibitions included a retrospective at the University of Birmingham in 1974, exhibitions with the New Art Centre in London and at Roche Court Sculpture Garden, and Carving in Britain from 1910 to Now at the Fine Art Society in 2012–13. In 2014 The Redfern Gallery presented The Sculpture of George Kennethson 1910–1994, bringing together a substantial group of his carvings and helping to renew attention to his work.

His work is held in public collections including Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.

The Estate of George Kennethson is represented by The Redfern Gallery.