Designer Desire: Kenneth Rowntree – H is for Home Harbinger

I’ve just come across a copy of A Prospect of Wales – number 43 in the King Penguin series and published in 1948. It contains 20 watercolours and a cover by Kenneth Rowntree. In looking him up, I discovered even more beautiful artworks that he created for the likes of School Prints Ltd, Edinburgh Weavers and Shell Guides.

Kenneth Rowntree A.R.W.S. (1915-1997) was a British painter, illustrator, collagist, muralist, draughtsman and teacher. Born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, he embarked on study at the Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford between 1930 & 1934 and immediately on to the Slade School of Fine Art for another year.

Between 1940 and 1943, Rowntree was one of over 60 of the country’s finest watercolour artists to be commissioned by the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime (part of the Ministry of Labour and National Service) and funded by the Pilgrim Trust to capture England and Wales before rural and agricultural development, urban growth or wartime destruction changed them beyond recognition. This ambitious project, dubbed Recording the Changing Face of Britain, encompassed 36 counties and was established by Sir Kenneth Clark, the then director of the National Gallery. The scheme ran alongside the official War Artists’ Scheme, which Clark also initiated.

Most of Rowntree’s watercolours for the program depicted parish churches and chapels in Bedfordshire, Essex, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Wales. His routine was to drive to the locations during the week, stay for a couple of days or more in an “absolutely solitary” circumstance.

Following the war, Rowntree joined the Royal College of Art as head of the mural painting studios. In addition, his topographical interests led him to collaborate with Clough and Amabel Williams Ellis on their Vision of England series, (published by Paul Elek between 1946 & 1950) illustrating the volumes covering Norfolk and the Isle of Wight and creating the cover for Sussex (which contained illustrations done by his friend and Essex neighbour, Michael Rothenstein).

In 1951, Rowntree painted murals – entitled The Freedoms – for the Lion and Unicorn Pavilion at the Festival of Britain (see image below).

In the 1960s, he collaborated with the architect Erno Goldfinger on coloured-glass screens for the entrance halls of the Ministry of Health building at Elephant & Castle, London.

There has been a book written about Rowntree by John Milner, available on Abe Books and Amazon.

Embed from Getty Images_{Kenneth Rowntree working on his Freedom Mural on the section depicting Charles the First being rebuffed by the Speaker of the House of Commons, 1642. This mural is an exhibit in the Lion and Unicorn Pavilion, South Bank Exhibition, Festival of Britain, 1951}

Additional image credits:
ArtUK | Invaluable | V&A