A Barbary Lamb
Note: With a handwritten and signed note from the artist attached to the reverse of the frame which reads: "This little lamb joins one in sending best wishes for your future happiness, wit fondest love, Laura"The card bears the address "16 Lanford Place, NW8" where the artist moved with her husband, Harold Knight, in the 1920s and lived in until her death.Provenance: A Private CollectionThis beautiful charcoal drawing of a Barbary lamb illustrates a species of caprine, native to the rocky mountains of the Sahara in North Africa. It is considered a rare breed these days due to their dwindling numbers in the wild, although protected from extinction by those introduced to Europe and North America around 1900. Dame Laura Knight was born Laura Johnson on 4th August 1877 in Long Eaton, Derbyshire. Her father abandoned the family shortly after her birth, leaving Laura, her mother and two sisters to face financial difficulties. Her mother, Charlotte Johnson taught part-time at the Nottingham School of Art and managed to get Laura accepted as an “artisan” student, paying no fees, at the age of 13. Two years later, Laura took over her mother’s role as she became seriously ill with cancer and won a scholarship. She met one of the School of Art’s most promising students, Harold Knight, then aged 17. They became friends and later married in 1903. The couple had visited Staithes on the Yorkshire coast for a holiday and found a colony of artists, so went to live and work there. Laura would draw the people of the fishing village, the surrounding farms and local children would sit for her giving her the opportunity to develop her figure painting skills. She recorded the hardship of the life there, producing very few oil paintings during that period due to her lack of funds. She later recalled: ‘Even though my studio was often warmed by burning canvases and drawings I do not regret all the experimental work done and destroyed…I developed a visual memory which has stood me in good stead’. In 1904 Harold and Laura made their first of several visits to the artist’s colony at Laren in the Netherlands. In 1907, they moved to Cornwall where they lived primarily at Newlyn and then moved to Lamorna. By March 1908 both had work exhibited at the Newlyn Art Gallery. Harold became an established portrait painter and Laura spent much time painting en-plein air on the beach, often on the cliff tops or the rocks, in a more Impressionist style than she had displayed before. By 1909 her work was being shown at the Royal Academy and one work was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada. Although she excelled at seaside paintings, she often painted female models who came down from London and who were prepared to pose in the nude, which were not so well received in London at the Academy. Her Self-Portrait with Nude 1913 was a reaction to these stuffy rules. After her death the painting now simply known as Self Portrait was purchased by the National Portrait Gallery and is considered a key work in female self-portraiture and a symbol of female emancipation. During World War One she was restricted by her outdoor painting activities and was forced to acquire a permit to continue to paint the coastline, a world away from the mud and blood of the trenches. Harold was a conscientious objector and forced to find work as a farm labourer, another subject for Laura, but most of this work was undertaken by fellow-women, the Land Girls. At this time Laura received a commission from the Canadian government War Records Office to depict life in soldiers’ training camps. This assignment was fulfilled in a series of works of boxing matches in Surrey.After the war the Knight’s moved to London in 1919. Laura was working in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and dry point mediums. It was during this period that Laura painted some of the most famous ballet dancers of the day from the Ballets Russes & the Bolshoi. She was also drawn to the Bertram Mills Circus at Olympia and painted many of the circus cast and animals and toured Britain with them. In the mid 1930’s Laura painted groups of Gypsies at the Epsom and Ascot racecourses and was subsequently invited to a Gypsy settlement at Iver in Buckinghamshire, usually closed to outsiders. In the early 1920’s Laura bought Sir George Clausen’s printing press and began etching. Between 1923 and 1925, she produced 90 prints, including many posters for London Transport. In 1926 Harold Knight was offered a commission in Baltimore at a hospital to paint the portraits of Surgeons. Laura joined him and was given special permission to paint in the black wards of the racially segregated Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was taken to early American civil rights movement meetings and painted a composition entitled ‘Madonna of the Cotton Fields’. In 1929 Laura Knight was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 1931 she received an honorary degree from St Andrew’s University. In 1936 she became the first woman since 1769 to be elected to full membership of the Royal Academy. In the same year she published her first autobiography ‘Oil paint and Grease Paint’, which became a best-seller. When World War Two broke out, the War Artists’ Advisory Committee came calling. The Knights were living at Colwall in Herefordshire where they found much inspiration for their work in the Malvern Hills. Laura was asked to produce a poster for the Women’s Land Army plus several other commissions such as a team of women hoisting a barrage balloon. After the war she suggested the Nuremberg war crimes trials as a subject. She went to Germany in 1946 and spent three months inside the courtroom recording the trials. On her return she divided her time between London and Malvern. Harold died in 1961 at Colwall. They had been married for 58 years. Laura’s second autobiography ‘The Magic of a Line’ was published in 1965 to coincide with a major exhibition of her work at the Royal Academy, showing over 250 works. It was the first exhibition for a woman at the Academy since it was established. It was followed in both 1968 and 1969 by further retrospective exhibitions at the Upper Grosvenor Galleries. Laura Knight died on 7 July 1970, aged 92. Her achievements as a woman artist starting from a difficult childhood, instructed in an academic tradition but enticed by the freedom of impressionism, breaking many barriers in a society dominated by male artists. A true pioneer and record- maker of social history and the arts. One of the most successful and popular painters in Britain and is still able to hold this accolade to the present day. “Knight’s conquest of movement was a metaphor for all that she herself had to overcome as a woman artist” – Timothy Wilcox, Art Historian ){kind=link}
Charcoal on Paper
Signed & dated lower right 'Laura Knight 1937'
25 x 35.7 cm (9.8 x 14 ins)
Note: With a handwritten and signed note from the artist attached to the reverse of the frame which reads: "This little lamb joins one in sending best wishes for your future happiness, wit fondest love, Laura"
The card bears the address "16 Lanford Place, NW8" where the artist moved with her husband, Harold Knight, in the 1920s and lived in until her death.
Provenance: A Private Collection
This beautiful charcoal drawing of a Barbary lamb illustrates a species of caprine, native to the rocky mountains of the Sahara in North Africa. It is considered a rare breed these days due to their dwindling numbers in the wild, although protected from extinction by those introduced to Europe and North America around 1900.
Dame Laura Knight was born Laura Johnson on 4th August 1877 in Long Eaton, Derbyshire. Her father abandoned the family shortly after her birth, leaving Laura, her mother and two sisters to face financial difficulties. Her mother, Charlotte Johnson taught part-time at the Nottingham School of Art and managed to get Laura accepted as an “artisan” student, paying no fees, at the age of 13. Two years later, Laura took over her mother’s role as she became seriously ill with cancer and won a scholarship. She met one of the School of Art’s most promising students, Harold Knight, then aged 17. They became friends and later married in 1903.
The couple had visited Staithes on the Yorkshire coast for a holiday and found a colony of artists, so went to live and work there. Laura would draw the people of the fishing village, the surrounding farms and local children would sit for her giving her the opportunity to develop her figure painting skills. She recorded the hardship of the life there, producing very few oil paintings during that period due to her lack of funds. She later recalled:
‘Even though my studio was often warmed by burning canvases and drawings I do not regret all the experimental work done and destroyed…I developed a visual memory which has stood me in good stead’.
In 1904 Harold and Laura made their first of several visits to the artist’s colony at Laren in the Netherlands. In 1907, they moved to Cornwall where they lived primarily at Newlyn and then moved to Lamorna. By March 1908 both had work exhibited at the Newlyn Art Gallery. Harold became an established portrait painter and Laura spent much time painting en-plein air on the beach, often on the cliff tops or the rocks, in a more Impressionist style than she had displayed before. By 1909 her work was being shown at the Royal Academy and one work was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada. Although she excelled at seaside paintings, she often painted female models who came down from London and who were prepared to pose in the nude, which were not so well received in London at the Academy. Her Self-Portrait with Nude 1913 was a reaction to these stuffy rules. After her death the painting now simply known as Self Portrait was purchased by the National Portrait Gallery and is considered a key work in female self-portraiture and a symbol of female emancipation. During World War One she was restricted by her outdoor painting activities and was forced to acquire a permit to continue to paint the coastline, a world away from the mud and blood of the trenches. Harold was a conscientious objector and forced to find work as a farm labourer, another subject for Laura, but most of this work was undertaken by fellow-women, the Land Girls. At this time Laura received a commission from the Canadian government War Records Office to depict life in soldiers’ training camps. This assignment was fulfilled in a series of works of boxing matches in Surrey.
After the war the Knight’s moved to London in 1919. Laura was working in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and dry point mediums. It was during this period that Laura painted some of the most famous ballet dancers of the day from the Ballets Russes & the Bolshoi. She was also drawn to the Bertram Mills Circus at Olympia and painted many of the circus cast and animals and toured Britain with them. In the mid 1930’s Laura painted groups of Gypsies at the Epsom and Ascot racecourses and was subsequently invited to a Gypsy settlement at Iver in Buckinghamshire, usually closed to outsiders.
In the early 1920’s Laura bought Sir George Clausen’s printing press and began etching. Between 1923 and 1925, she produced 90 prints, including many posters for London Transport.
In 1926 Harold Knight was offered a commission in Baltimore at a hospital to paint the portraits of Surgeons. Laura joined him and was given special permission to paint in the black wards of the racially segregated Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was taken to early American civil rights movement meetings and painted a composition entitled ‘Madonna of the Cotton Fields’.
In 1929 Laura Knight was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 1931 she received an honorary degree from St Andrew’s University. In 1936 she became the first woman since 1769 to be elected to full membership of the Royal Academy. In the same year she published her first autobiography ‘Oil paint and Grease Paint’, which became a best-seller.
When World War Two broke out, the War Artists’ Advisory Committee came calling. The Knights were living at Colwall in Herefordshire where they found much inspiration for their work in the Malvern Hills. Laura was asked to produce a poster for the Women’s Land Army plus several other commissions such as a team of women hoisting a barrage balloon. After the war she suggested the Nuremberg war crimes trials as a subject. She went to Germany in 1946 and spent three months inside the courtroom recording the trials. On her return she divided her time between London and Malvern. Harold died in 1961 at Colwall. They had been married for 58 years.
Laura’s second autobiography ‘The Magic of a Line’ was published in 1965 to coincide with a major exhibition of her work at the Royal Academy, showing over 250 works. It was the first exhibition for a woman at the Academy since it was established. It was followed in both 1968 and 1969 by further retrospective exhibitions at the Upper Grosvenor Galleries. Laura Knight died on 7 July 1970, aged 92.
Her achievements as a woman artist starting from a difficult childhood, instructed in an academic tradition but enticed by the freedom of impressionism, breaking many barriers in a society dominated by male artists. A true pioneer and record- maker of social history and the arts. One of the most successful and popular painters in Britain and is still able to hold this accolade to the present day.
“Knight’s conquest of movement was a metaphor for all that she herself had to overcome as a woman artist” – Timothy Wilcox, Art Historian