Object Description
Frederick Leslie Kenett (1924 -2012)
A Reclining Ancient Mayan Sculpture
Black & white gelatin silver print, circa 1958, mounted on card, framed
Stamped on reverse ‘F.L. Kenett, The Studio, 4 Eldon Road London W8’ with Negative No. ‘AFR 139’. 50 cm. wide x 40.5 cm. high (unframed), 67.25 cm. x 57.5 framed
“Unquestionably the greatest photographer of sculpting in the world who himself became a sculptor”. Tom Rosenthal, The Listener, 1960s
This rare studio-stamped print is a fine example of Kenett’s sculptural photography.
Frederick Leslie Kenett was born in Berlin in 1924 to a German doctor. Kennett was forced to flee the country in 1939 and came to England, joining the US Intelligence Corps during the war, where he developed an interest in photography.
After the War he studied photography at the Guildford School of Art. Following his studies Kenett specialised in the photography of sculpture and works of art using a skilful method of lighting and shooting on 5×4 film or glass plate. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Kenett became highly sought-after for his sculptural work and undertook important commissions for museums, publishers, governments and collections across the world.
In 1958 Kenett was commissioned to make a photographic survey of life in Mexico. A Chacmool is a form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its stomach. These figures possibly symbolised slain warriors carrying offerings to the gods; the bowl upon the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, including tortillas, tobacco, turkeys, feathers, and incense.
The chacmool form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century AD in the Valley of Mexico and the northern Yucatán Peninsula. The present chacmool comes from Chichen Itza and was excavated by Augustus Le Plongeon in 1875. It is now displayed at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.