On 30 September 2022 the Royal Mint unveiled Jennings' design for the obverse face of the British coinage, for which he had modelled the effigy of King Charles III. A crowned version of the same effigy was used for a special edition issue at the time of the coronation in May 2023. Coins using the effigy have Jennings' initials under the monarch's neck. A "digitally re-lit" version of the portrait has been used by Royal Mail for the new stamps bearing the image of Charles III,[5] the first time since the 1940s (and the George VI portrait by Humphrey Paget) where the same, unmodified effigy has featured on both coins and stamps.[6]
Early life
Jennings was born in 1957. In 1979 he received his honours degree in English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford, after which he took a City & Guilds course in Lettering (1979–80). From 1980 to 1983 he was apprenticed to Richard Kindersley for architectural lettering.[7]
Notable works
Jennings created a bronze monument commemorating the pioneer plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe which was unveiled in June 2014 in the High Street, East Grinstead. Jennings' own father, Michael Jennings, a tank commander badly injured near Eindhoven in 1944, was treated for burns by McIndoe's team during the war. The monument depicts McIndoe standing behind and resting his hands reassuringly on the shoulders of a seated airman, who has burned hands clawed together, and a scarred face turned to one side. The figures are encircled by a stone bench.[8]
Also in 2014, Jennings completed a bronze statue of Charles Dickens, which was unveiled in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, the city of the author's birth.[9]
In June 2016, two statues by Jennings were installed. The first paid tribute to the women who worked in the armaments industry during the Second World War and was sited in front of Sheffield's City Hall. For Women of Steel Jennings was given the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association's 2017 Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture.[10][11] The second commemorated Crimean War nurse Mary Seacole and was sited in front of St Thomas' Hospital in London. Both of these were unveiled at a time when the paucity of monuments to women across the country was being publicly discussed. The making of the Jennings statue was recorded in the ITV documentary David Harewood: In the Shadow of Mary Seacole (2016)[12] along with her life story.
