Martin Jennings (b. 1957) is well known for his public sculpture, memorials and architectural inscriptions for cathedrals, colleges and public buildings. His figurative sculptural representations of great writers and poets, including John Betjeman at St Pancras Station, London; Charles Dickens in Portsmouth and George Orwell outside the BBC Broadcasting House, are often accompanied by text carved into stone or slate.

Jennings studied calligraphy, letter-cutting and stone-carving at City & Guilds from 1979 – 1980 following an MA in English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. From 1980 to 1983 he was apprenticed to Richard Kindersley for architectural lettering. His notable portraits, often cast in bronze and working to commission, have gained great popularity. In 2000, Jennings was commissioned to create a sculpture of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the last to be modelled from the sitter in her lifetime. In September 2022, the Royal Mint unveiled Jenning’s design for the obverse face of the British coinage, for which he had modelled the effigy of King Charles III, and in October 2024 his work depicting the life mask of John Keats was unveiled in Moorgate.

Martin Jenning’s work is included in several public collections, and can be found in many public spaces around the UK, including the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; The House of Commons, Palace of Westminster, London; St Paul’s Cathedral, London and the National Portrait Gallery, London. Martin Jennings lives and works in Stroud, Gloucestershire.