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Laura Knight
Dame Laura Knight 1936
Born
Laura Johnson

(1877-08-04)4 August 1877
Died7 July 1970(1970-07-07)(aged 92)
London, England
EducationNottingham School of Art
Known forPainting
Notable workThe Nuremberg Trial(1946)
MovementRealism,Impressionism
Spouse
(m.1903; died 1961)
AwardsSilver Medal at the1928 AmsterdamArt Olympics
Websitewww.damelauraknight

Dame Laura KnightDBERARWS(néeJohnson;4 August 1877 – 7 July 1970[1]) was an English artist who worked in oils,watercolours,etching,engravinganddrypoint.Knight was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition, who embraced EnglishImpressionism.In her long career, Knight was among the most successful and popular painters in Britain. Her success in the male-dominated British art establishment paved the way for greater status and recognition for female artists.[2]

In 1929 she was created aDame,and in 1936 became the third woman elected to full membership of theRoyal Academy.[3]Her large retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1965 was the first for a woman. Knight was known for painting amidst the world of the theatre and ballet in London, and for being awar artistduring theSecond World War.She was also greatly interested in, and inspired by, marginalised communities and individuals, includingRomani peopleand circus performers.[2][4]

Biography

[edit]

Early life

[edit]

Laura Johnson was born inLong Eaton,Derbyshire,the youngest of the three daughters of Charles and Charlotte Johnson.[5]Her father abandoned the family not long after her birth, and Knight grew up amid financial problems.[6][7]Her grandfather owned a lace-making factory but the advent of new technology led to the business going bankrupt. The family had relations in northern France who were also in the lace-making business and in 1889 Knight was sent to them with the intention that she would eventually study art at a Parisianatelier.After a miserable time in French schools, the bankruptcy of her French relations forced Knight to return to England.[6]

Charlotte Johnson taught part-time at theNottingham School of Art,and managed to have Knight enrolled as an 'artisan student' there, paying no fees, aged just 13.[2][8]At the age of fifteen, and still a student herself, Knight took over her mother's teaching duties when Charlotte was diagnosed with cancer and became seriously ill.[6]Later, Laura won a scholarship and the gold medal in the national student competition held by the thenSouth Kensington Museum.She continued to give private lessons after she left the School of Art, as both she and her sister Evangeline Agnes, known as Sissie, had been left to live alone on very little money, after the deaths of their mother, their sister Nellie and both their grandmothers.[8]At the School of Art, Laura met one of the most promising students,Harold Knight,then aged 17, and determined that the best method of learning was to copy Harold's technique.[5]They became friends, and married in 1903.[9]

Staithes and Laren

[edit]

In 1894, the couple visitedStaitheson the Yorkshire coast, for a holiday and soon returned, accompanied by her sister Evangeline Agnes, to live and work there. In Staithes Laura drew the people of the fishing village and the surrounding farms, showing the hardship and poverty of their lives. She made studies, paintings and watercolours, often painting in muted, shadowy tones. Lack of money for expensive materials meant she produced few oil paintings at this time. Local children would sit for her, for pennies, giving her the opportunity to develop her figure painting technique. Less successful at this time were her landscape and thematic works. Although she painted on the moors, high inland from Staithes, she did not consider herself successful at resolving these studies into finished pieces. Later she recalled:

Even though my studio was so often warmed by burning canvases and drawings I do not regret all the experimental work done and destroyed. Staithes was too big a subject for an immature student, but working there I developed a visual memory which has stood me in good stead ever since.

Laura Johnson and Harold Knight married in 1903 and made their first trip to the Netherlands in 1904. They spent six weeks there that year and six months there in 1905. They visited the artists colony atLaren.The colony was a group of followers of theHague Schoolof artists who had been painting in remote rural communities since the 1850s. The Knights made a third trip to Laren in 1906 before spending that winter inYorkshire.[8]

Cornwall

[edit]

In late 1907 the Knights moved to Cornwall, staying first inNewlyn,before moving to the nearby village ofLamorna.[10]There, alongsideLamorna BirchandAlfred Munnings,they became central figures in the artists colony known as theNewlyn School.[11]By March 1908 both had work exhibited at theNewlyn Art Galleryand Harold Knight was an established professional portrait painter, while Laura Knight was still developing her art. Around Newlyn the Knights found themselves among a group of sociable and energetic artists, which appears to have allowed the more vivid and dynamic aspects of Laura's personality to come to the fore.[12][13]

Laura Knight spent the summer of 1908 working on the beaches at Newlyn making studies for her large painting of children in bright sunlight.The Beachwas shown at theRoyal Academyin 1909, and was considered a great success, showing Laura painting in a more Impressionist style than she had displayed previously.[8]Around this time she began painting compositions of women in the open air, in theplein-airmanner, often on the rocks or cliff-tops around Lamorna.[14]Knight would sometimes use models from London who were prepared to pose nude. Although there was some resentment locally about this, the landowner, Colonel Paynter ofBoskenna,was fully supportive and allowed Knight and the other artists a free rein.[13]Daughters of the Sun,which showed several women, some naked, sitting by a coastal inlet was completed in 1911 and well received when shown at the Royal Academy.[15]It is now only known from photographs but was considered to be a challenge to the then prevailing attitudes towards female nudity and aroused considerable controversy when included in a touring exhibition. The painting was badly damaged during World War I and was eventually destroyed by mould.[16]In recent years, examples of Knight's plein-air compositions from Cornwall have attracted high prices at auction.[17]

Another work from this time isThe Green Feather,which Knight painted outdoors in a single day, and reworked due to a change in the weather, which shows the model Dolly Snell in an emerald evening dress with a hat and a large feather.[12]Knight sent the painting to an international exhibition held at theCarnegie InstituteinPittsburghand it was purchased by theNational Gallery of Canadafor £400.[1]Knight started the vast paintingLamorna Birch and his Daughtersin 1913, painting in a wood in the Lamorna Valley but then kept the painting unfinished in her studio until finally completing it in 1934, the same year Birch was elected a full member of the Royal Academy.[15]

Self Portrait with Nude

[edit]
Self Portrait with Nude,1913

In 1913 Knight made a painting that was a first for a woman artist,Self Portrait with Nude,showing herself painting a nude model, the artistElla Naper.[18]The painting is a complex, formal composition in a studio setting. Using mirrors, Knight painted herself and Naper as seen by someone entering the studio behind them both. As an art student Knight had not been permitted to directly paint nude models but, like all female art students in England at the time, was restricted to working from casts and copying existing drawings. Knight deeply resented this, andSelf Portrait with Nudeis a clear challenge, and reaction, to those rules.[2][4]

The painting was first shown in 1913 at thePassmore Edwards Art Galleryin Newlyn, and was well received by both the local press and other artists. Although the Royal Academy rejected the painting for exhibition, it was shown at the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in London, asThe Model.The Daily Telegraph's critic called the painting "vulgar", and suggested that it "might quite appropriately have stayed in the artist's studio".[2]

Despite this reaction, Knight continued to exhibit the painting throughout her career, and it continued to receive press criticism. After Knight's death the picture, now known simply asSelf Portrait(1913), was purchased by theNational Portrait Gallery,and is now considered both a key work in the story of female self-portraiture and as symbolic of wider female emancipation.[2][19]In 2015,Simon Schamadescribed the painting as a "masterpiece" and "incomparably, her greatest work, all at once conceptually complex, heroically independent, formally ingenious and lovingly sensual."[6]

First World War

[edit]

Knight worked with Ella Naper, who was experienced inenameling techniques,to produce a set of small enamel pieces featuring several ballet dancers, which were shown at theFine Art Societyin London in 1915.[20][15]Wartime censorship during theFirst World Warincluded restrictions on sketching and painting around the British coastline,[21]which caused problems for Knight, particularly when paintingSpring.[8]Special painting and sketching permits available after 1915 allowed her to continue her paintings of cliff-top landscapes. These were often depicted as relaxed summer scenes but some of her works, particularly those painted after the start of World War I, of a lone woman on a clifftop staring down at a turbulent sea had a darker undertone.[14]Springwas shown at the Royal Academy in 1916 but later reworked.[8]Several others were completed from studies in the Knights' first London studio after they moved to the capital in 1919.[12]

Also in 1916 Knight received a £300 commission to paint a canvas for the Canadian Government War Records office on the theme ofPhysical Training in a Camp,and produced a series of paintings of bo xing matches atWitleyinSurrey.[21]During the war, in 1916, Harold Knight had registered as aconscientious objectorand was eventually required to work as a farm labourer.

Ballet

[edit]

Between 1911 until 1929, Knight drew and painted backstage, some of the most famous ballet dancers of the day fromSergei Diaghilev'sBallets Russes.[22][23]Her subjects includedLydia Lopokova,Anna Pavlovaand the dance teacherEnrico Cecchetti.[4]Knight also painted backstage, and in the dressing rooms, at severalBirmingham Repertory Theatreproductions.[8]In 1924 she was commissioned to design the costumes for the balletLes Roses.[24]

Etching

[edit]

In the early 1920s Knight bought SirGeorge Clausen's printing press and beganetching.She produced 90 prints between 1923 and 1925, including a poster advertising tram travel toTwickenhamforLondon Transport.[25]Knight continued to produce posters for London Transport throughout her career, including one on circus clowns in 1932 andWinter Walksin 1957.[26]

In 1922, Knight made her first trip to the United States, where she served on the jury at the Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Pictures.[21]

Baltimore 1926

[edit]
Land Army Girl(1944) (National Archives)
Corporal J. D. M. Pearson, GC, WAAF(1940) (Art. IWM ART LD 626)

In 1926 Harold Knight spent several months at theJohns Hopkins HospitalinBaltimore,in America, painting portrait commissions of surgeons. Laura joined him there and was given permission to paint at the Baltimore Children's Hospital and in the black wards of the racially segregated Johns Hopkins Hospital. Whilst in Baltimore Knight painted a nurse, Pearl Johnson, who took her to meetings and concerts of the early American civil rights movement.[19]Knight also hired a mother and child model to pose for the composition originally known as theMadonna of the Cotton Fields.[4]Knight took these paintings back to London with her and they feature in thePathénewsreel produced to mark her election as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1927.[2]Another portrait of Johnson,Irene and Pearl,shows two women against a backdrop of skyscrapers and was one of a number of portraits Knight painted in the late 1920s that appear strikingly modern.Miss Ealand,shown at the Royal Academy in 1928, depicts a woman with cropped hair wearing a jacket and holding a shotgun. The same year Knight's portrait of a woman saxophone player was displayed at theNational Gallery of Artin Washington DC.[27]

Circus folk

[edit]

In the early 1920s Knight visited theBertram Mills CircusatOlympiain West London. Mills' circus was a highly polished show with internationally renowned performers.[2]Knight painted some of these performers, such as the clown Whimsical Wilson, several times.[2]Charivari or The Grand Parade,exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1929, depicts practically the entire circus cast of performers and animals.[12]

Throughout 1929 and 1930, she went on a tour of Britain with the combined Bertram Mills and Great Carmo's Circus. Painting within a working circus forced Knight to paint at great speed, as the performers rarely had much time to pose. Knight responded by painting directly onto the canvas without any preliminary drawing. Whilst this led to some of her circus scenes appearing 'flat', her paintings of small groups of clowns, such asThe Three Clowns(1930) andOld Time Clowns(1957), were much more successful.[12]HerCircus Folkexhibition, at the Alpine Club in 1930, was heavily criticised in art journals, but her paintings of more mundane subjects, such as domestic interiors and London streets, were highly praised.[12]Notable works from this period includeSusie and the Wash-basin(1927),Blue and Gold(1927),A Cottage Bedroom(1929) andSpring in St. John's Wood(1933).[12]

Two of her circus designs were among the winning entries in a 1933 competition run byCadbury's for a series of chocolate box designs and which were displayed at the Leicester Galleries in London.[28]In 1934 Knight developed a series of circus designs for theModern Art for the Tabletableware range produced byClarice Cliff.[29]

Recognition

[edit]

At the1928 Summer Olympicsin Amsterdam Knight won theSilver Medal in Paintingwith the paintingBoxer(1917), one of the series she had painted at Witley in 1916.[21][30]In 1929 Knight was made aDame Commander of the Order of the British Empire,and in June 1931 she received an honorary degree fromSt. Andrews University.[21]Knight was elected president of theSociety of Women Artistsin 1932 and held the post until 1967.[27]In 1936 she became the first woman since 1769 elected to full membership of theRoyal Academy.[31][9][a]The same year Knight published her first autobiography,Oil Paint and Grease Paint,which became a best-seller, with four hardback editions followed in 1941 by aPenguinpaperback printing.[32]

From 1933 the Knights became regular visitors toMalvern, Worcestershire,making an annual visit to theMalvern Festival,which had been established by their friendBarry Jackson.During one such visit Knight metGeorge Bernard Shawand painted his portrait.[1]A blue plaque at the Mount Pleasant Hotel on Belle Vue Terrace, Great Malvern, commemorates the time the Knights spent in the area. They found much inspiration for their work in the Malvern Hills and in the surrounding countryside and by the start of World War Two the couple were living atColwallinHerefordshire.[1]

Gypsies

[edit]

In the mid-1930s Knight befriended and painted groups of Gypsies at theEpsomandAscotracecourses. Knight frequently returned to the racecourses and painted from the back of an antiqueRolls-Roycecar, which was large enough to accommodate her easel. Often pairs of Gypsy women would pose at the open door of the Rolls-Royce, with the race-day crowds in the background. From Epsom, Knight was invited to the Gypsy settlement atIverinBuckinghamshire.Knight visited the Iver settlement, normally closed to outsiders, every day for several months in the late 1930s. These visits resulted in a series of portraits of great intensity. Two women, in particular, sat a number of times for Knight: Lilo Smith, the subject ofOld Gypsy Women(1938) andGypsy Splendour(1939), and her daughter-in-law, Beulah.[33]Gypsy Splendourwas shown at the Royal Academy in 1939, the year Lilo Smith died.[2]

Second World War

[edit]
A Balloon Site, Coventry(1943) (Art. IWM ART LD 2750)
Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring(1943) (Art. IWM LD 2850)
Take Off(1943) (Art.IWM ART LD 3834)

In September 1939 Knight was asked to produce a recruitment poster for theWomen's Land Army,WLA. Knight hired twoSuffolk Punchhorses and a plough from a farmer and painted them outdoors in a cherry orchard on Averills' farm in Worcestershire. Her original design for the WLA poster was rejected for placing too much emphasis on the horses rather than the women working. A new design, with a single woman, was accepted. Knight painted her 1940 Royal Academy entry,January 1940,showing a similar scene at the same time.[21]During theSecond World War,Knight was an official war artist, contracted by theWar Artists' Advisory Committeeon several short-term commissions.[34] Among the works Knight produced for these commissions were:

  • Corporal J. D. M. Pearson, GC, WAAF(1940) – shows CorporalDaphne Pearsonof theWomen's Auxiliary Air Force,WAAF, a recipient of theEmpire Gallantry Medal,later exchanged for theGeorge Cross.Pearson, at Knight's insistence, sat for the portrait holding a rifle; as WAAF personal were not allowed to carry arms on duty, Knight had to paint over the rifle, which was replaced by a gas mask in the finished painting, with the hands positioned as if still holding a rifle.[35][36][37]
  • Corporal J. M. Robins(1940) – Robins was awarded theMilitary Medalfor the courage she showed in assisting the wounded when a shelter was directly hit by a bomb during an attack onRAF Andover.[38]WAAC had requested that Knight paint Robins as part of a group of medal-winning women, but Knight refused.[2]
  • In For Repairs(1941) – showing a partly inflated barrage balloon being repaired by several members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force atWythall,near Birmingham. The painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1941.[12][39]
  • Corporal Elspeth Henderson and Sergeant Helen Turner(1941) –Hendersonand Turner were both awarded the Military Medal for staying at their post when the building they were in received a direct hit from a bomb during an air raid onRAF Biggin Hill.Although painted in Knight's studio in Malvern, the painting shows the two women on duty at their airfield.[2]
  • A Balloon Site, Coventry(1943) – shows a team of women hoisting a barrage balloon into position with the chimneys of industrial Coventry in the background surrounding the spire of Coventry Cathedral. WAAC commissioned the work as a propaganda tool to recruit women forBalloon Command,and Knight's composition succeeds in making the work appear both heroic and glamorous.[12]
  • Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring(1943) – in the autumn of 1942 the WAAC commissioned Knight to paint a portrait to bolster female recruitment to the ordnance factories, as theMinistry of Supplywere concerned at the level of disaffection and absenteeism among women working in the factories. The resulting painting is one of the largest oil paintings in the entire WAAC collection, and the largest single figure portrait it acquired throughout the war.[40][41]The painting was first shown on 30 April 1943 at the Royal Academy and the next day was reproduced in eight British newspapers. The painting, along with Knight and Loftus, also featured in a British Paramount News short film shown in cinemas,[40]and was reproduced in a poster version by WAAC.[12]The success of the painting led to further industrial commissions for Knight throughout the 1940s. In 1945 she paintedSwitch Worksat Ellison Switchgear in Birmingham. This was followed by paintings of operations at the Dow Mac concrete railway-sleeper works and at the Skefko ball bearing factory.[2]
  • Take Off(1944) – a large and complex group portrait of four from the seven-man crew of aShort Stirlingbomber, deep in concentration, preparing for a flight, which Knight painted over several months atRAF Mildenhall.Knight lived in the WAAF Officers' Mess while on the base, and the RAF gave her the use of an obsolete Stirling to work in while preparing the painting. When Knight learned that the navigator in the picture, Raymond Frankish Escreet, had been killed in action, she arranged that his family received a photograph of the painting.[2]

In total, Knight had seventeen completed paintings, together with numerous studies, accepted by the WAAC, most of which were exhibited in theNational Galleryor theRoyal Academyduring the war. Throughout the war Knight also continued taking private commissions, usually for individual or family portraits. The most notable war-time example of these is the composition,Betty and William Jacklinshowing a mother and child, along with their pet rabbit and the Malvern countryside in background, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1942, besideIn for Repairs.

Nuremberg 1946

[edit]
The Nuremberg Trial, 1946(1946) (Art. IWM ART LD 5798)

In the aftermath of the war Knight proposed to the War Artists' Advisory Committee theNuremberg war crimes trialsas a subject. The Committee agreed, and Knight went to Germany in January 1946 and spent three months observing the main trial from inside the courtroom.[5][37]The result was the large oil painting,The Nuremberg Trial.This painting departs from the realism of her wartime paintings, in that, whilst apparently realistically depicting the Nazi war criminals sitting in the dock, the rear and side walls of the courtroom are missing, to reveal a ruined city, partially in flames.[42]

Knight explained this choice of composition in a letter to the War Artists' Advisory Committee:[43]

In that ruined city death and destruction are ever present. They had to come into the picture; without them, it would not be the Nuremberg as it now is during the trial, when the death of millions and utter devastation are the sole topics of conversation wherever one goes – whatever one is doing

The painting was coolly received at the subsequent Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, but was greatly praised by those who had witnessed the trials.[2]

Later life

[edit]

After the war Knight returned to her previous themes of the ballet, the circus and Gypsies, and continued to divide her time between London and Malvern.[4]In 1948 Knight painted backstage at theShakespeare Memorial Theatre,mostly observing the work of the wardrobe department, still working under austerity restrictions.[12]The same year she painted a large group portrait ofPrincess Elizabethand several civic dignitaries opening the new Broadgate Centre in Coventry. A period of illness affected her work on this commission, and, despite Knight's repainting large parts of the canvas, the finished painting was not well received.[12]A major exhibition of over eighty works by Knight was held at the Ian Nicol Gallery inGlasgow,in 1952.[2]The following year Knight returned to the theatre, painting and producing crayon studies, backstage at theOld Vicin London during theBirmingham Repertory Theatre's production ofHenry IV, Part 1&Part 2.[2]Throughout this period Knight continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy each year, most notably with a portrait ofJean Rhodes,a professional strong woman known as 'The Mighty Mannequin', which when shown in 1955 led to further portrait commissions for Knight. In 1956 Knight worked backstage at theRoyal Opera Houseduring performances and rehearsals by theBolshoi Ballet.

In 1961, Harold Knight died at Colwall; the couple had been married fifty-eight years. Knight's second autobiography,The Magic of a Linewas published in 1965, to coincide with a major retrospective of her work at the Royal Academy. The exhibition, the first such for a woman at the Academy,[44]contained over 250 works, and was followed in 1968 and 1969 by further retrospective exhibitions at the Upper Grosvenor Galleries.[2]

Knight died on 7 July 1970, aged 92, three days before a large exhibition of her work opened at theNottingham CastleArt Gallery and Museum.[2]

Published works

[edit]
  • 1921:Twenty-one Drawings of the Russian Ballet[45]
  • 1923:Laura Knight: A Book of Drawings,with an introduction by Charles Marriott[46]
  • 1936:Oil Paint and Grease Paint[45]
  • 1962:A Proper Circus Omie[45]
  • 1965:The Magic of a Line[45]

Membership

[edit]

Knight was a member of or affiliated with the following organisations:[2][8]

Exhibitions

[edit]

Exhibitions of her work held during Knight's life included:[2][8]

Posthumous exhibitions

[edit]
  • 1970: Nottingham Castle Museum,
  • 1983: Edition Graphique Gallery, London,
  • 1985:Painting in Newlyn 1900–1930,Newlyn Art Gallerythen at theBarbican Art Gallery,
  • 1988: David Messum Fine Art,
  • 1989: Nottingham Castle Museum,
  • 1991: David Messum Fine Art,
  • 1996:Women Artists in Cornwall 1880–1940,Falmouth Art Gallery,
  • 2005:Painting at the Edge,Penlee HouseGallery,
  • 2006:From Victorian to Modern...,Djanogly Art Gallery and on tour,
  • 2008:Laura Knight at the Theatre,The Lowryand on tour,
  • 2008:The Magic of a Line: Drawings by Dame Laura Knight, R.A.,Library Print Room, Royal Academy of Arts, then at Penlee House Gallery in 2008,
  • 2012:Laura Knight: In the Open Air,Penlee House Gallery and on tour,[48]
  • 2013:Laura Knight Portraits,National Portrait Gallery, London,then Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle andPlymouth City Museum and Art Galleryin 2014[49][50]
  • 2021:Laura Knight: A Panoramic View,Milton KeynesGallery, 160 works displayed, 9 October 2021 – 20 February 2022
  • 2024:Dame Laura Knight: I Paint Today,Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum,13 January 2024 - 30 June 2024

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^Two founding members of the Royal Academy of the Arts in 1768 wereMary MoserandAngelica Kauffman,but women could not attend life classes or hold office. Women were discouraged from studying at the school following Moser and Kauffman's deaths.[51]The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says thatAnnie Swynnertonwas the first woman since the 1800s to become an associate.[52]The Royal Academy of Arts site says that she is the first woman to be elected into the organization (Moser and Kauffman were co-founders), in 1922.[53]Knight became an associate member in 1927 and became the first woman to be elected a full member in 1936.[51]She was elected a senior member in 1953.[54]

References

[edit]
  1. ^abcd"Knight [née Johnson], Dame Laura".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34349.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  2. ^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuRosie Broadley (2013).Laura Knight Portraits.National Portrait Gallery,London.ISBN978-1-85514-463-7.
  3. ^The first wasAnnie Swynnerton,who was elected to full membership in 1922, although shortly afterwards her membership status was changed to 'associate' when it was realized she was over the normal cut-off age for full membership, 75, at time of admission.
  4. ^abcdeLydia Figes (7 July 2020)."Laura Knight: reasserting the female gaze and painting marginalised communities".Art UK.Retrieved8 July2020.
  5. ^abcRachel Cooke(14 July 2013)."Laura Knight: Portraits – review".The Observer.Retrieved14 July2013.
  6. ^abcdSimon Schama(2015).The Face of Britain – The Nation Through Its Portraits.Viking.ISBN978-0-670-92229-1.
  7. ^"The Official Dame Laura Website: Biography".Archived fromthe originalon 8 July 2011.Retrieved15 January2011.
  8. ^abcdefghiElizabeth Knowles (2012).Laura Knight in the open air.Sansom & Co.ISBN978-1-906593-65-0.
  9. ^ab"Artist of the Month, Dame Laura Knight RA (1877-1970)".Royal Academy.July 2013.Retrieved16 October2017.
  10. ^Penlee House Gallery & Museum."Laura Knight 1877–1970".Penlee House Gallery & Museum. Archived fromthe originalon 17 July 2013.Retrieved22 August2013.
  11. ^Penlee House Gallery & Museum."The Newlyn School c.1880–c.1940".Penlee House Gallery & Museum. Archived fromthe originalon 13 March 2011.Retrieved22 August2013.
  12. ^abcdefghijklCaroline Fox (1988).Dame Laura Knight.Oxford:Phaidon Press.ISBN0-7148-2447-X.
  13. ^abCaroline Fox (1985).Painting in Newlyn 1900–1930.Newlyn Orion.
  14. ^abP.L Henderson (19 July 2022)."Laura Knight: enduring expressions of British summertime".Art UK.Retrieved24 February2023.
  15. ^abcCatherine Wallace (2002).Under the Open Sky – The Paintings of the Newlyn and Lamorna Artists 1880–1940 in the Public Collections of Cornwall and Plymouth.truran.ISBN978-185022-168-5.
  16. ^Carolyn Trant (2019).Voyaging Out: British Women Artists from Suffrage to the Sixties.Thames & Hudson.ISBN9780500021828.
  17. ^Germaine Greer(20 June 2010)."Paula Rego is the fourth women painter to be made a dame. I wish she'd refused".The Guardian.Retrieved10 March2017.
  18. ^Tessa Hadley (6 July 2013)."Laura Knight:The unashamed illustrator".The Guardian.Retrieved31 July2013.
  19. ^abKathryn Hughes (11 July 2013)."Dame Laura Knight and the nude controversy".Daily Telegraph.Retrieved23 August2013.
  20. ^Barbara C. Morden (2014).Laura Knight A Life.McNidder & Grace.ISBN9780857160492.
  21. ^abcdefGill Clarke (2008).The Women's Land Army A Portrait.Sansom & Company.ISBN978-1-904537-87-8.
  22. ^Judith Mackrell (24 June 2008)."Laura Knight at the Theatre, Lowry, Salford".The Guardian.Retrieved31 July2013.
  23. ^Strickland, Alice (2019).Laura Knight.London: Eiderdown Books.ISBN978-1-9160416-3-9.OCLC1108700070.
  24. ^Strickland, Alice (2019).Laura Knight.London: Eiderdown Books. p. 24.ISBN978-1-9160416-3-9.OCLC1108700070.
  25. ^"Poster Girls exhibition showcases forgotten design heroines".BBC News.13 October 2017.Retrieved13 October2017.
  26. ^David Bownes (2018).Poster Girls.london transport museum.ISBN978-1-871829-28-0.
  27. ^abAlicia Foster (2004).Tate Women Artists.Tate Publishing.ISBN1-85437-311-0.
  28. ^Lucy Ellis (10 April 2020)."Luxery assortment: the British artists behind Cadbury's chocolate boxes".Art UK.Retrieved15 April2020.
  29. ^Leonard Griffin (1999).Clarice Cliff the Art of the Bizarre.Pavilion Books Limited.ISBN1-86205-219-0.
  30. ^"Laura Knight".Olympedia.Retrieved27 July2020.
  31. ^Great women artists.Phaidon Press. 2019. p. 219.ISBN978-0714878775.
  32. ^Teresa Grimes, Judith Collins & Oriana Baddeley (1989).Five Women Painters.Lennard Publishing.ISBN1852910836.
  33. ^Rosie Broadley (1 October 2013)."Dame Laura Knight portraits".Art UK.Retrieved12 September2017.
  34. ^"Dame Knight, Laura, RA (1877–1970)".Canadian War Museum.Archived fromthe originalon 3 October 2012.
  35. ^Rachel Aspden (12 March 2009)."War through women's eyes".New Statesman.Archived fromthe originalon 4 January 2018.
  36. ^Matt Brosnan."7 Artworks of the Battle of Britain".Imperial War Museum.Retrieved15 October2016.
  37. ^abArifa Akbar (8 April 2011)."Women at war: The female British artists who were written out of history".The Independent.Retrieved31 March2017.
  38. ^"Art: Corporal J M Robins, MM, WAAF".Imperial War Museum.Retrieved18 June2020.
  39. ^Jack Lazenby (2 September 2020)."Women of the wars: five female artists who depicted women's contributions".Art UK.Retrieved8 September2020.
  40. ^abBrain Foss (2007).War paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939–1945.Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-300-10890-3.
  41. ^"A Gun Girl – Ruby Loftus – Dame Laura Knight's Newport commission".Wartime Newport: The Home Front. Archived fromthe originalon 18 March 2016.
  42. ^Philippe Sands(25 May 2016)."Artwork in focus:The Nuremberg Trial".Art UK.Retrieved14 September2017.
  43. ^Kathleen Palmer (2011).Women War Artists.Tate Publishing/Imperial War Museum.ISBN978-1-85437-989-4.
  44. ^Frances Spalding(1990).20th Century Painters and Sculptors.Antique Collectors' Club.ISBN1-85149-106-6.
  45. ^abcdDame Laura Knight official website."Literature on Dame Laura Knight".Dame Laura Knight Official website.Archived fromthe originalon 16 September 2013.Retrieved3 September2013.
  46. ^The Spectator archive (24 August 1923)."Book Review forLaura Knight: A Book of Drawings".The Spectator.Retrieved4 September2013.
  47. ^"Laura Knight (details)".cornwall artists index.Retrieved24 October2017.
  48. ^"Dame Laura Knight RA: In the Open Air".Penlee House.16 June 2012.
  49. ^National Portrait Gallery (2013)."Laura Knight Portraits".National Portrait Gallery.Retrieved24 March2014.
  50. ^Adrian Hamilton (22 July 2013)."Human touch:Laura Knight's NPG show is a timely reminder of her talent".The Independent.Retrieved29 January2013.
  51. ^abJulia M. Gergits (1999)."Royal Academy of Arts".In Helen Tierney (ed.).Women's Studies Encyclopedia.Greenwood. pp. 1236, 1237.ISBN978-0-313-31073-7.
  52. ^"Swynnerton [née Robinson], Annie Louisa (1844–1933)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/60287.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  53. ^"Annie Swynnerton, A.R.A".Royal Academy of Arts.Retrieved14 October2021.
  54. ^"Dame Laura Knight, R.A."Royal Academy of Arts.Retrieved14 October2021.

Further reading

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  • Janet Dunbar,Laura Knight(Collins, 1975)
  • Alice Strickland,Laura Knight - Modern Women Artists(Eiderdown Books, 2019)
  • Helen Valentine,Laura Knight: A Working Life(Royal Academy of Arts, 2022)
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