A presentation of Eric Kennington's powerful, poignant and unforgettable portraits of soldiers of the Second World War in charcoal and pastel.

The work he produced in this period established Kennington as 'among the most capable draughtsmen' of the day. He was frequently mentioned by leading art critics as equal in skill to contemporaries such as Augustus John, William Orpen and John Singer Sergeant.

Kennington's work was routinely placed in the same class as such giants from the past as Botticelli, Van Eyck, Durer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Cranach, Ingres and Goya. The incisive, crystalline quality of his draughtsmanship was especially admired, the variety of effects he could achieve with the subtlest change in pressure on a stick of charcoal or pastel.

This book brings together a fine selection of Kennington's war portraits, along with accounts of his sitters' dramatic careers and the context of these works.

Dr Jonathan Black has been a Senior Research Fellow in History of Art at Kingston University since 2008. His publications include The Graphic Art of Eric Kennington (UCL, 2001), The Sculpture of Eric Kennington (Lund Humphries, 2002), Form, Feeling and Calculation: the Paintings and Drawings of Edward Wadsworth (PWP, 2005) and Dora Gordine: Artist, Sculptor, Designer (PWP, 2008). He has published various essays on aspects of early 20th century British and European Art, e.g. on the prints of C. R. W. Nevinson (2007), Henri Gaudier Brzeska and the First World War (2007), graphic artist Hans Schleger (2009), Charles Sargeant Jagger's Royal Artillery Memorial, London (2010) and Eric Kennington's friendship with T. E. Lawrence (2010)