Rodney Eric Kennedy (20 August 1909 – 14 October 1989) was a New Zealand artist, art critic, pacifist and drama tutor.
[4] The same year Kennedy was a founding member of W.H.Allen and Field's art group, the Six and Four Club (six women, four men) a mix of teachers and students.
His interest is obviously centred in the study of rhythm and form.’[13] The Evening Star critic enthused, ‘An extremely sympathetic group of works by Rodney Kennedy.
Such pictures repay more than a hurried glance and are keenly satisfying to one who looks for more than mere naturalism in a landscape.’[14] In 1940 Kennedy joined other young artists, including Anne Hamblett, in removing their works at the opening of the Otago Art Society exhibition in protest at the Society refusing to hang a painting by Colin McCahon.
Before World War II he and Colin McCahon with assistance from Doris Lusk had designed sets for the Left Book Club's production Karel Čapek's Insect Play.
[16] O’Reilly remembered being impressed by, ‘the directness and fresh unconventionality’ of Kennedy and McCahon's work on the set, ‘contriving powerful and beautiful effects from meagre materials.’[17] At the end of World War II Kennedy was released from the internment camp and returned to Dunedin where he was appointed Country Drama Tutor, Adult Education Department Otago University and became involved in a number of theatre productions.
[18] In 1949 Kennedy played the Herald in Ngaio Marsh's production of William Shakespeare's Othello the Moor of Venice in the Canterbury University College Drama Society .
[19] The 1950s saw Kennedy and McCahon continue working together on the sets and costumes for a number of productions including: Peer Gynt, ( 1953),[20] Swan Lake (1954),[21] and The Glass Menagerie in 1956.