Laura Knight (painter)

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Laura Knight about 1910
Young worker in a bomber factory (1943).
Laura Knight as a war painter in a bomber factory during World War II

Dame Laura Knight , DBE (born August 4, 1877 in Long Eaton , England, † July 7, 1970 in London ) was a British impressionist painter. Laura Knight became known for her portraits of dancers, actors and circus actors in the early 20th century. She was an official war painter and still painted with oil and canvas at a time when photography and film had long been the standard for picture reporting - for example at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals in 1946.

Life

Laura Johnson grew up in simple circumstances as a half-orphan. When she was 13, she was sent to Paris to prepare for art studies. She came back at 23 and attended the Nottingham School of Art . There she met the student Harold Knight , who specialized in portraits and landscape painting and whose work she copied. The two married in 1903 and they had two daughters.

In 1907 the couple moved to an artists' colony in Newlyn (Cornwall), where they met the occultist Aleister Crowley , among others . In Newlyn, Laura Knight perfected her impressionistic painting style. In 1913 she painted one of the pictures that made for her artistic breakthrough: the Self Portrait with Nude , where she portrays herself while painting, the nude model in the studio and on the canvas.

After the First World War , the Knights moved to London. Here she made portraits of numerous stage artists, including the dancers of the Ballet Russes .

In 1929 she was ennobled and in 1936 became the first woman since 1769 to be admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts . During the Second World War she was hired by Kenneth Clark as an official war painter. She mainly painted in England, including portraits of women workers in a bomber factory .

In 1946 she was part of the press team at the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals and, among other things, painted scenes from the trial room.

Knight painted until the 1960s, staying true to her realistic style. Her life's work comprises over 250 pictures and two autobiographies. Oil Paint and Grease Paint (1936) and The Magic of a Line (1965).

literature

Web links

Commons : Laura Knight  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Rachel Spence: Outer Truth , Financial Times , July 13, 2013, p. 15
  2. ^ Exhibition Laura Knight: Portraits . National Portrait Gallery , London, 2013
  3. ^ New York Times, November 2, 1927
  4. ^ Women at war: The female British artists who were written out of history . In: The Independent . April 8, 2011. Retrieved July 4, 2013.
  5. ^ New York Times, August 9, 1936 : Review of Oil Paint and Grease Paint
personal data
SURNAME Knight, Laura
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Orovida; Knight, Laura Johnson; Johnson Knight, Laura
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British painter
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Long Eaton
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1970
Place of death London