Prior to his career as a professional artist, Jenkins was a barrister and then served in the Army during WWII. He developed his talent for lively on-the-spot sketching after enrolling at Heatherley’s Art School, and exhibited his spontaneous line drawings in a number of one-man shows in London, New York and Boston. He took pleasure in sketching everyday life and drew all manner of characters – military figures, auctioneers and policemen in London, farmers at the fairs and markets in Ireland, and sentry guards and others in Tangier. Although most of his drawings appear to have been achieved with boldness and rapidity, some were in fact built up over a series of days, on which a line or two would be meticulously added each day following a fresh glimpse of his subject. On a very few occasions he was obliged to complete his pictures with the aid of a photograph: one such case was a drawing of the Queen taken at Trooping the Colour, which was acquired by HRH Princess Alice and given by her to the Queen. Jenkins sold his drawings and prints during his lifetime, but at his death the remaining pictures were bequeathed to Priscilla McLeod: a lifelong friend and fellow student from Heatherley’s. Jenkins’s drawings from her collection were exhibited at Martyn Gregory in 1995.