John Kenney illustrated some of the best loved Ladybird Books of the 1950s, 60s and 70s
John T E Kenney produced a great many of the wonderful Ladybird Book images at the start of what might be called the ‘golden years’ of Ladybird Books including most of the Hisory classics such as “Nelson”, “Captain Scott”, “Queen Elizabeth”, “Oliver Cromwell” and “Stone Age Man in Britain”. He also illustrated one of the best loved fiction books, “Tootles the Taxi” and the early Robin Hood series: “The Ambush” and “The Silver Arrow”. In the lively touch of “The Circus Comes to Town” you can clearly see they style the led The Reverend Awdry to invite Kenney to illustrate the classic Thomas the Tank Engine Books, which he did between 1957 and 1962, before chronic ill health complelled him to hand over the task to Peter Edwards.
Serving in the army, he landed in Normandy on D-Day, and, unofficially, recorded the scenes he witnessed in impromptu black and white sketches. After the war he worked as a commercial artist, a role he gave up in 1952 to concentrate on his painting, principally of sporting scenes.
It is a a sporting artist that Kenney principally made a living and a reputation,recreating vivid, energetic hunting scenes set in the lovely landscape of his home county of Leicestershire. As a mature artist he preferred to sketch directly at the hunt and then transpose these sketches to oils on canvas. His preferred canvas size was 2 foot by 3 foot – yet he adapted well to the small scale and constraints of book illustration posed by Ladybird and Thomas the Tank Engine.
Kenney’s life had its trials and challenges. Ill-health dogged him for much of his life, limiting his travels and his output. His eye sight began to fail and in 1968 he lost the sight of one eye. Yet a family friend remembers John Kenney with great affection:
“As well as being very talented, John was a lovely man who sadly died [in 1972] at the age of just 61”.
Thank you for the images of the Ladybird Magic that inspired me when i was a Junior Pupil in 1974 0r 73 ? i was a casual Drawer of the images of Comics when I was in my space and pace in a Free Hand bubble of Ambience when at home, both Mum and Gran worked at Duxbury’s Paper Mill so you can imagine paper everywhere, enough that I would take boxes for the School to have ………… One day, it was afternoon, I was sent to the Headmaster for not complying to the Teacher with a Borstal Institution Look and Vibe … I felt I was wrongly judged returning to the Class, so I must have put all my focus on a Picture in a Ladybird book to draw and copy an image I would have never attempted to do due to the detail in the pictures, the One I picked and Drew ended up in the display cabinet of the Schools Achievement in Medals etc … so what I’m searching for is the Artist that Drew and Painted the St George and the Dragon in the Lady bird books that I loved, I’ve tried to search for it with no results, and on discovering there’s 2 or 3 Artist, and you’re the first one I chose , thank you