Laura Knight: A Panoramic View

by Anthony Spira (Editor), Fay Blanchard

A major survey of Dame Laura Knight, first female Royal Academician and popular British artist of the 20th century.

Laura Knight (1877–1970) was one of the most famous and popular English artists of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, in 1965. In the following decades her realist style of painting fell out of fashion and her work become largely overlooked. A new generation has rediscovered her work, finding a contemporary resonance in her depictions of women at work, of people from marginalized communities and her contributions as a war artist.

This beautifully illustrated book, which accompanies a major exhibition at MK Gallery, provides an overview of Knight's illustrious from her training at Nottingham Art School at the age of 13 and her time in North Yorkshire and Cornwall, to her visits to traveller communities and a segregated American hospital. It also features her circus, ballet and theatre scenes, paintings of women during the war and her late paintings of nature.

The selection of over 160 works combines celebrated paintings with less known graphic and design works, including ceramics, jewellery and costumes that reflect the artist's enduring interest in the everyday activities of people from all walks of life.

Genres: Art

224 pages, Paperback

Published April 5, 2022

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breath-taking exhibition. Comprehensive catalogue.

[J M-B · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pictures in this catalogue provide good representation of the range of Laura Knight’s art, her command of different styles and media and the dignity she accorded her models. Whether it is ballet, theatre, circus, gypsies at race meetings, or war industry, Knight presents her subjects without idealization or sentimentality and as stubbornly embodied individuals engaged in a job of work. Her portraits, as well as her studies of young women and children on beaches and cliffs, are also present us with highly individualized subjects, rather than types, and the studies frequently accord the subject the dignity of a name. I dearly hope i will be able to visit the exhibition before it closes.

The essays accompanying the texts are helpful and include insight into the reception of her work as revealed by snippets taken from contemporary critics. Knight’s own words are also included, taken from her several memoirs, often accompanied by modern apologetics for perceived racism inferred from Knight’s outdated language. Barbara Walker condemns Knight as one who perpetuated use of racist language for her use of the words ‘darkie’ and ‘picanninny’ in her 1936 autobiography ‘Oil Paint and Grease Paint’. Not having read Knight’s writings (yet) i cannot comment on whether she expressed racist attitudes, but inferring such attitudes and applying that inference to interpreting her art from isolated lexical choices seems a step too far. Whereas the use of the term ‘piccaninny’ in 2002 by (now) UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was undeniably intentionally racist and reprehensible, the use of such terms was so commonplace in the thirties that it is not appropriate to assume every use was intentionally derogatory. ‘Picanninny’, to stick with that example, could be read in the fiction of F Scott Fitzgerald and Graham Green, it was a dialect word and was used without pejorative sense in Creole languages. Damien Le Bas, a Romany artist who also contributes to the catalogue, is happy to trust the evidence of her handling of Gypsy subjects from the paintings themselves, ‘beautiful, honest and glinting with dignity and romance’ (p. 159).

[Sara Aye Moung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of paintings, drawings and more by an artist I am enjoying discovering. Her art is brilliant and this book includes some interesting insights and information about her life and work.

[Sally Slade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Began it as an interested fan and ended it as a disciple. What a woman. I liked the "contributing essayist" format, as well.
Book number 26 of my #60before60 (about Art). It has changed the way I draw and paint.

[Helen White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Covering the majority of Laura Knight's work. Highlights for me are the Cornwall years, the war propaganda art and the Malvern collection. Stunning images.