Dame Laura Knight

by Caroline Fox

Laura Knight (1877-1970) was the first woman artist to be made a Dame of the British Empire. Her work covers a variety of subjects from the Nuremberg trials to her portrayals of London's theatre and ballet. This first critical appraisal of her work includes extracts from her autobiographies.

Genres: Art

128 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1988

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

So, I bought this book because I stumbled across a painting by Laura Knight which isn't actually in this book, but which sent me down a rabbit hole trying to find out more about the subjects of the painting (Elspeth Henderson and Helen Turner), and about the painter herself.

(Go look at this picture. JUST GO LOOK.)

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-i...

http://www.damelauraknight.com/artwor...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obitu...

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-...

(I confess, when I first saw this picture, I mistakenly thought it was exceptionally astonishing fanart for the scene in Code Name Verity where Verity first turns up, speaking German, to talk down the German pilot in the radio room. Because frankly, the picture is perfect down to every last detail.)

OK, so, it turns out that Laura Knight was a talented and driven British painter of the early twentieth century who loved subjects who MOVED. She was actually hired by a circus to work as their artist in residence for several months. She loved out-of -the-ordinary subjects; she painted gypsies, circus performers, visitors to horse races, convalescent black children in a Baltimore hospital; during World War II she was commissioned for propaganda paintings and heroic portraits (hence Henderson and Turner). She got herself sent to Nuremberg to record the trial procedure and became absolutely immersed in the trials themselves - she was given a gallery to paint in on site.

This book chronicles and illustrates her life and her relationships, with warm-hearted, accessible text and a wide variety of Knight's paintings both in colour and black & white. And gosh darn it, I want a print of Elspeth Henderson to hang above my desk.

(Oh look. Here's she's painted Maddie and Julie again a couple of times):

http://www.sothebys.com/content/dam/s...

http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/.a/...