Person    | Female  Born 4/8/1877  Died 7/7/1970

Dame Laura Knight

Categories: Art

Painter. Born Derbyshire with the surname Johnson. Met her future husband Harold at Nottingham Art School, though they did not become romantically involved until 1894, after they had both left, and married in 1903. From 1907 they were in an artist's colony in Cornwall. At the end of WW1 they moved to London where Laura painted Diaghilev's ballet company from behind the scenes, a vantage point that she would use repeatedly over the years. In 1922 they took a long lease on the house in Langford Place where they each had a studio. Later they also had a home near Malvern. Harold was a successful portrait painter and Laura achieved success with a wide range of subjects, including circus performers and gypsies and was an official war artist in WW2. She was the first woman elected to the Royal Academy since its 1768 foundation, in 1936 - the year before Harold was elected. She died at Langford Place. 

This is an unusual story of married artists, in that the wife not only continued her career but was, if anything, more successful than the husband. The marriage was childless, which gave Laura unusually equal opportunities to work and succeed, and she did.

Our picture is a self-portrait and shows Knight painting a nude, a shocking thing for a woman (but not a man) to be doing in 1913; at art school she had been excluded from the life class.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Dame Laura Knight

Commemorated ati

Laura & Harold Knight

They lived here 1922 - 1970 and this is where Laura died.

Read More

Other Subjects

Debbie Bunting

Debbie Bunting

2018: Our colleague Andrew Behan provides: Deborah R. Friedlander, also spelt Freedlander was born on 13 August 1920, the daughter of Alfred Freedlander and Ethel Eleanor Freedlander née Stammers. ...

Person, Art, Community / Clubs

1 memorial
Sir Edward John Poynter

Sir Edward John Poynter

History painter.  Born Paris but brought up in England.  Director of the National Gallery and President of the Royal Academy.  Died at his house and studio, 70 Addison Road, Kensington.

Person, Art

1 memorial
Glasgow School of Art

Glasgow School of Art

Founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design. It changed to its current name in 1853. The main building, shown in the picture, in Renfrew Street was designed by Charles Rennie Mackint...

Group, Architecture, Art, Education, Scotland

1 memorial
Jerome Davenport

Jerome Davenport

Australian graffiti artist with the Twitter/Instagram handle @ketones6000.

Person, Art, Australia

1 memorial
Art in the Park

Art in the Park

Art in the Park is a charity devoted to enriching Londoners' lives and environment through visual arts. They run art and performance based education and training workshops, and are involved in comm...

Group, Art, Gardens / Agriculture, Philanthropy

1 memorial