Eric Kennington was one of the first artists to be employed by the British government as an Official War Artist. He is most famous for his drawings of ordinary British soldiers from both the First and Second World Wars. The 1918 volume of British Artists at the Front was dedicated solely to his work, the fourth in a series comprising Paul Nash, John Lavery and C.R.W. Nevinson. Kennington worked concurrently in different media; his early artistic practice focused predominantly on painting and sculpture, and many of his pastel portraits were completed in the 1920s. His pastels are perhaps the best examples of his skill as a portraitist.

This portrait of E.J. Robertson is no exception. Much is achieved with a limited colour palette, which lends itself to the formality of the subject. The sitter’s severe gaze, the neat knot of his tie and the tension held in the mouth create an image of seriousness and dignity. The use of light, however – the reflection in the spectacles, the rosy glow to the face, and the play of light over the folds of his suit – softens the austere expression. The placement of a mirror in the background further illuminates the part-profile of Robertson. One side of the portrait is set against darkness and the other is brightly exposed, with Kennington manipulating the shadows to create in the image a certain warmth.

Many of Kennington’s pastels portray their subjects in an idealised manner, especially those of military personnel. A portrait of Flight Lieutenant Lloyd Watt Coleman, for example, shows a junior RAF officer in full uniform, proudly displaying the insignia of his division (fig. 1). Many similar paintings were included in the War Artists’ Advisory Commission exhibition of 1940 at the National Gallery, which was the first of its kind. Kennington’s skill as a portraitist extended beyond his role as war artist to include depictions of religious leaders, civil servants and, as with the portrait of Robertson, private commissions of illustrious clients.

Ewart John Robertson (1892–1960) was from a modest Canadian background and rose to become Chairman of the Board of Beaverbrook Newspapers through his fortuitous friendship with William Maxwell Aitken (later created Lord Beaverbrook), the British media mogul. At the time of his death in 1960, Robertson was largely responsible for the editorial content of the Daily Express. It is unknown how Kennington and Robertson met, although it was likely through the former’s involvement with the WAAC, which was responsible for the official propaganda campaign of the Second World War. Both Robertson and Kennington had fought on the Western Front in France in 1915.

The pastel of Robertson is one of many portraits by Kennington that depict non-military subjects, the most famous of which is the series of works from his time in the Middle East (see fig. 2), especially the illustrations made for T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The portrait is one of the later examples of Kennington’s pastel work, completed towards the end of his career when he was also working in sculpture. The impressive detail of the hyper-realist style is the result of a lifetime of capturing, with extreme precision, the true likeness of his subjects.