Laura Knight  

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Dame Laura Knight, DBE (4 August 1877 – 7 July 1970) was an English painter who garnered fame for capturing the world of London's theatre, ballet and circus.

Contents

Early life and education

Laura Knight (neƩ Johnson) was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire to Charles and Charlotte Johnson. Her father died not long after her birth, and Laura Knight grew up in a family that struggled with financial problems. In 1899 she was sent to France with the intention that she would eventually study art at a Parisian atelier.

After a short time in French schools, Johnson returned to England. There, at the age of 13 she entered the Nottingham School of Art, one of the youngest students ever to join the school.

Marriage

At school, a promising students, Harold Knight (1874-1961), aged 17. Johnson determined that the best method of learning was to copy Harold's technique. They became friends, and in 1903, Harold and Laura married.

Work

In 1907 the Knights moved to the artists' colony in Newlyn, Cornwall, alongside Lamorna Birch, Alfred Munnings and Aleister Crowley, where she painted in an Impressionist style. The Beach (1908), widely admired both by other artists and the public, is an example of this style. Another interesting work is The Green Feather, which was painted in one day. In 1913 she made a painting that was a first for a woman artist, Self Portrait with Nude, showing herself with a nude model, fellow artist Ella Naper.

After World War I, the Knights moved to London where Laura Knight met some of the most famous ballet dancers of the day, such as Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes with Lydia Lopokova and Enrico Cecchetti, and Anna Pavlova. Her most famous work dates from this period. Template:Fact

After a visit with her husband to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where she saw an African-American for the first time, she remarked "The babies of American darkies are among the most beautiful things in the world. In fact, to the artist there is a whole world of beauty which ought to be explored in negro life in America."

In 1929 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 1936 she became the first woman elected to the Royal Academy.

After World War II, she was the official war artist at the Nuremberg Trials. The result was The Dock, Nuremberg (1946). She continued to paint even after her husband's death in 1961. She produced over 250 works in her lifetime as well as two autobiographies, Oil Paint and Grease Paint (1936) and The Magic of a Line (1965).

Death

She died on 7 July 1970, aged 92.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Laura Knight" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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