Ley Kenyon

Bennett Ley Kenyon (28 May 1913 – 9 November 1990) was an artist, illustrator, designer, teacher and deep sea diver. During World War II he was involved in the Great Escape tunnel mass escape from the Stalag Luft III prison camp.

Education

Kenyon was born in Kensington, London, educated at Marylebone Grammar School and (from 1931 to 1934) studied at the Central School of Art and Crafts. His teachers there included James Grant, Bernard Meninsky, William Roberts and Alfred Turner.[1] Upon graduation he gained employment as a designer for a firm of sign makers.[2]

Wartime

During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force from 1940, becoming an air gunner in March 1941 and graduating as a pilot officer in October.[3] Posted to 419 Squadron he manned the rear gun turret on over 40 missions, which eventually won him the Distinguished Flying Cross medal. But on the night of September 16, 1942 he was on board a Halifax Mk II LW240 bomber when it was shot down during a raid on Modane in France. He was captured and imprisoned in the Stalag Luft III prison camp.[4]

To help pass the time he ran art classes for other prisoners, and soon his skills were employed by the Escape Committee's head of forgery Tim Walenn, drawing maps and forging identity passes and papers.[5] He also kept a pictorial record of the tunnel dig. Kenyon was due to be escaper number 120, but the tunnel was discovered in March 1944 as the escape was in progress with only 76 of the planned 220 prisoners free.[6]

Recovered after the war, his drawings were included in the first editions of Paul Brickhill's Escape to Danger (1946) and The Great Escape (1951), for which he also designed the cover.[7] They were privately published in the 1970s as a portfolio.[8]

Commercial artist

From the late 1940s Kenyon made his living as a commercial artist and illustrator of adventure, science fiction and children's book covers for Bodley Head, Faber & Faber, Collins, Longmans Green, and other publishers. He also drew illustrations for the magazines Tatler and Illustrated London News.[2][9]

Kenyon was a keen deep sea diver and underwater photographer, which led to him helping Jacques Cousteau with his underwater filming.[10] He also wrote several books on the underwater world, illustrating them and diving books by other authors. In 1956, the News of the World launched Rocket: the Space-Age Weekly, a comic for boys, for which Kenyon wrote and drew the Professor Jack Ransom underwater adventure comic strip.[11]

Kenyon married the Hungarian portrait artist Zsuzsi Roboz in 1953, but the relationship was short-lived.[12] In the 1950s he was living at No. 7, Queen Elm's Square, Old Church Street in Chelsea.[10] He was a member of London Sketch Club[13] and (in 1967) chairman of the Chelsea Arts Club.[1]

In later life he lectured for the British Council and acted as a teacher of young people participating in scientific expeditions. Between 1984 and 1989 he was Art Director for Operation Raleigh (1984–89), a large-scale, four-year international youth expedition involving around 4,000 young people aged 17–24. He died on November 9, 1990, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, aged 77.[14]

Book illustrations and jackets

Author

  • Aqualung Diving (1956 with Werner de Haas)
  • Collins' Pocket Guide to the Undersea World (1956)
  • Discovering the Undersea World (1961)

References

  1. ^ a b David Buckman. 'Artists in Britain Since 1945 (1998), p. 692
  2. ^ a b Profile, Art History Research net
  3. ^ Stephen Wynn. Escaping Stalag Luft III: From the Wooden Horse to the Great Escape (2025), pp. 25-27
  4. ^ Clarence Simonsen. 'Ley Kenyon and the Mouse Before the Moose', Bomber Command Museum Archives
  5. ^ Simon Read. Human Game (2012), p. 8
  6. ^ Peter Bagshawe. Passion for Flight: Braving the Hazards of Aviation in War and Peace (2000), p. 107
  7. ^ The Great Escape, With Drawings by Ley Kenyon, Faber (1951)
  8. ^ The Great Escape Stalag Luft III, from the original drawings made by Ley Kenyon, 1943, nine A4 prints and explanatory text, published by the artist in 1977
  9. ^ 'How a Great Prisoner-Of-War Escape Was Planned by R. A. F. Officers', Illustrated London News, Vol.207, Issue 5543, 14 July 1945, pp. 6-7
  10. ^ a b 'Probed 2,300-year Secret of Silent World', Chelsea News and General Advertiser, 8 October 1954, p. 1
  11. ^ 'The Art of Ley Kenyon', in The Art of Diving, 4 August, 2014
  12. ^ Zsuzsi Roboz obituary, The Guardian, 29 August 2012
  13. ^ David Cuppleditch. The London Sketch Club (1994), pp. 156-157
  14. ^ Bernard Dolman. Who's Who in Art (1992), p. 268
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