Charles Napier Kennedy
Charles Napier Kennedy was born in London in February, 1852.
Son of Lt. Colonel John Pitt Kennedy (son of John Pitt Kennedy, rector of Carndonagh, Co. Donegal), who, after a lengthy service in the army, was Inspector General under the National Board in Ireland, and afterwards distinguished himself as an engineer in the service of the Indian Government, and died in 1879.
Charles Napier studied at the Slade School and in Paris.
He exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1872 and was a frequent contributor until 1894, as well as at the Society of British Artists, the New Gallery and elsewhere.
In 1886 he began to exhibit in the Royal Hibernian Academy and was made an Associate on the 18 July 1896.
He was also a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-colours.
Some of his best pictures were shown at the New Gallery, including ‘The fair-haired Slave who made himself a King,’ now in the Corporation Art Gallery in Manchester.
His Neptune, a fine, vigorously painted picture, is in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; it was etched by P. A. Masse / for the Art Journal for January, 1890.
The Nation Gallery of Ireland possesses ‘The Boy and the Dryad‘, the gift of his widow. Lucy KENNEDY (nee Marwood), who is also listed as a painter of figures and domestic subjects, and who exhibited primarily in London.
Kennedy died at St. Ives, Cornwall, on 17th January, 1898.
