George Kenner

George Kenner (November 1, 1888 - July 10, 1971) was a German artist. He made 110 paintings and drawings during the First World War while interned as a German civilian prisoner of war in Great Britain and the Isle of Man.

Birth and background

Kenner was born Georg Kennerknecht on November 1, 1888 in the small town of Schwabsoien, near the Alps in the Weilheim-Schongau district of Bavaria, Germany. He went to art school in Germany. He moved to London in 1910. He worked at and co-owned the small "process artist" company Waddington & Kennerknecht at 73 Farringdon Street with a British partner. He also attended night school at London's Lambeth School of Art to study airbrush techniques. He was registered as an "alien enemy" on August 23, 1914, then abruptly interned five days after the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915.

Being a trained commercial artist by profession, and wanting to stay in practice with his work, he negotiated with the PoW camp authorities to be allowed to create what became the most extensive collection of World War I internment scenes known.