Hurlingham Fine Arts

Description

A sublime conté drawing of a Mother and Child knitting by the distinguished Newlyn School artist, Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970), signed and dated 1911.

Laura Knight,née Johnson, was a painter, watercolourist and etcher, mainly of scenes from ballet,circus,music hall and theatre. She was born on 4th August 1877 at Long Eaton, Derbyshire. She was educated in Nottingham and at St.Quentin,France.While at the Nottingham School of Art she met and married the artist,Harold Knight. They held their first joint exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in 1906. The Knights first lived and worked at Staithes in Yorkshire,sometimes going on summer painting trips to Laren, Holland. In 1908 they settled in Newlyn, Cornwall, joining the artist's colony known as the Newlyn School. Our drawing, showing the influence of the Dutch school, was created by Laura Knight at Newlyn in 1911.

In 1919 she was elected associate of the RWS and in 1927 associate of the RA. She was made a full member of the RWS in 1928 and a full member of the Royal Academy in 1936. In 1929 she was created DBE. In 1965 the Royal Academy gave her a retrospective exhibition, the first woman to be honoured in this way.

Provenance: January 1951, Fred R. Meatyard, Fine Art Dealer,9 Arlington Gardens,Margate,Kent. Formerly of 32 Museum Street,London W.C.1