Early Life
Laura Knight (nee Johnson) had a challenging upbringing. She never knew her father and was brought up, with her two older sisters, by her mother, who taught art. Knight enrolled at the Nottingham School of Art when she was only 13 and met Harold Knight, her future husband. At just 15 years old, Laura had to take over her mother’s private teaching duties when she became ill with cancer. She died a year later. Life was tough for Laura as she was left an orphan and lived for the next five years in extreme poverty. She arrived on the London arts scene aged 26 after her painting Mother And Child No 1 was hung at the Royal Academy. The same year she married fellow painter Harold Knight. After living for a few years in Staithes, Yorkshire, the Knights moved to Cornwall in 1907, where they became central figures in the growing artists community.
Laura was an artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. She was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition who embraced English Impressionism. Laura specialised in combining landscapes and figures and occasionally caused much controversy. When she painted nude models out of doors, it caused some controversy among the local population, but her charming and lively personality overcame most resistance. She became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1927, was awarded the DBE in 1929 and in 1936 became the first woman elected to the Royal Academy since its foundation in 1768.
Laura Knight (nee Johnson) had a challenging upbringing. She never knew her father and was brought up, with her two older sisters, by her mother, who taught art. Knight enrolled at the Nottingham School of Art when she was only 13 and met Harold Knight, her future husband. At just 15 years old, Laura had to take over her mother’s private teaching duties when she became ill with cancer. She died a year later. Life was tough for Laura as she was left an orphan and lived for the next five years in extreme poverty. She arrived on the London arts scene aged 26 after her painting Mother And Child No 1 was hung at the Royal Academy. The same year she married fellow painter Harold Knight. After living for a few years in Staithes, Yorkshire, the Knights moved to Cornwall in 1907, where they became central figures in the growing artists community.
Laura was an artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. She was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition who embraced English Impressionism. Laura specialised in combining landscapes and figures and occasionally caused much controversy. When she painted nude models out of doors, it caused some controversy among the local population, but her charming and lively personality overcame most resistance. She became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1927, was awarded the DBE in 1929 and in 1936 became the first woman elected to the Royal Academy since its foundation in 1768.
World War 1
After a recommendation by art critic P. G. Konody, Laura Knight obtained a commission from the Canadian War Office to record the training at the Physical Training Camp 1918 in Witley Camp. She produced a series of paintings of boxing matches in 1916. This was a highly unusual subject for a women at that time, but her ebullient character won her friendship with the camp's boxing instructor. She soon became "one of the lads", sketching in the gym surrounded by an admiring audience of soldiers providing her with cigarettes. Following an exhibition of her works from the camp, Harpers and Queen wrote in a review that "the most masculine pictures of the time are being painted by women." During this time, Laura Knight appears to be developing as a person, coming out of her shell. She spoke enthusiastically about women's rights and the role of women in society. Women's suffrage had been suspended until 1917 and the new bill allowing some women to vote received Royal Consent in 1918. Laura Knight worked on paintings which were predominately of women. In this painting of a carousel at Penzance Fair, the scene is full of women, children and there are only a few young and old men. There is no complete family unit due to conscription. Laura Knight painted herself in the red cardigan, her favourite item of dress which appears in many of her works. She is looking up at her younger self playing on the carousel, also dressed in red.
The earlier restrictions preventing anyone using the coastline and beaches were relaxed in 1917. Knight produced a series of ten paintings of women on the coast, drawing attention to the women who were left behind to run the country when the men went off to war. She often showed two different types of women, with differing hair styles (one usually had a new, modern bob hair style), stance and clothes. The women seem to be contemplating, sometimes staring out to sea. There was no shrinking violet in her work and it seems she was challenging the work of many other great artists of the time. In this picture The Green Sea, one of the women is gazing out on to an endless sea to war ships going off to fight. It is full of uncertainty. (Tap on the painting to get a closer look through an external link) At the end of the war, because of the difficulties the Knights experienced due to Harold Knight being a conscientious objector, the couple moved to London. |
World War 2
The War Artists' Advisory Committee asked Laura Knight to paint Ruby Loftus, aged 21, a young engineer as she worked on a screw of the beech-ring for the Bofors gun in the Royal Ordnance Factory in Monmouthshire. She learnt the skill in record time, just two years instead of the customary eight so the authorities wanted to use Ruby as a sort of industrial pin-up to encourage more women to work in factories. They were also concerned with the disaffection and absenteeism among women in factories. The painting was quite unique for its time. Its presentation is totally academic, like an advertisement with factual detail. There is a dazzling array of machinery which the model focuses on. Some see Ruby's portrayal is bland, lifeless; her personality generalised. This is a criticism of many of Laura's portraits. Determined to cope with life after such a difficult childhood, Knight may have "learnt to suppress her feelings, so she never risked that empathy to paint a great portrait." (Cayer, 1999) Other's comment on the beauty and femininity of Ruby; her auburn hair, pencilled eyebrows and red lipstick, doing "man's work" while dressed in grubby overalls. Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring (1943) Knight was also asked to paint portraits of women who had distinguished themselves through acts of bravery and skill. Below is:
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In the painting titled A Balloon Site, Coventry Knight depicts a team of women hoisting a barrage balloon into position with chimneys of industry in the background. Again, this was a propaganda tool to recruit women for Balloon Command, so she made the women look both heroic and glamorous.
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The Nuremberg Trials 1946
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After the War
Laura Knight persuaded the WAAC to send her to the Nuremberg trials in 1946. She spend three months in the courtroom, sitting above and to the side of the defendants, unlike the other war artists who were there. The result is her only surreal painting, an impressive portrait of the defendants which can be regarded as both anti-war and patriotic. It depicts the war criminals sitting in the dock, listening to the trial through headphones, leaning back or heads bent forward holding their heads or shuffling papers. She captured the character of the criminals rather than painting the crimes they committed. We cannot tell if the defendants feel guilty, repudiation or boredom. The back walls are replaced with a city destroyed with rubble and flames. Laura wrote in a letter tot he WAAC, "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" (Palmer 2011). This painting, which departs from her earlier wartime painting style of realism, wasn't received well at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition but was highly praised by the people who had been at the trial. |
Laura Knight was one of the most popular and pioneering British artists of the twentieth century. She used portraiture to capture contemporary life and culture, and her paintings are remarkable for their diverse range of subjects and settings. She died on 7 July 1970, aged 92.