Knight, Laura

She was born in a poor family, grew up half-orphan. At the age of 13, the girl was sent to Paris, where she began to study art. At the age of 23, she returned to England and entered the Nottingham School of Art. At this school, Laura gets acquainted with the student Harold Knight, who studied there, specializing in landscapes and portraiture. Laura was engaged in copying the works of Harold, so they became close. In 1903, young people entered into a marriage in which they had two children.

In 1907, the Knights moved to Newlin , where they became members of the local colony of artists ( Newlin School ). Here they also meet with the famous magician and occultist Aleister Crowley . In Newlin, the artistic talent of L. Knight as a master impressionist is most fully revealed. In 1913, she writes her Self-Portrait Nude, which depicts herself in the style of nude . This work is considered to be epoch-making in the work of L. Knight (now stored in the London National Portrait Gallery ). After the end of World War I, the Knights move to London. In London, Laura specializes in portraits of circus, theater and ballet actors, dancers, including from the Russian ballet Diaghilev , as well as scenes from gypsy life. She was an Olympic silver medalist at creative competitions at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

In 1929, the artist was elevated to the nobility. In 1936, Laura Knight became the first woman admitted to the full membership of the Royal Academy of Arts (since 1769, the time of its foundation) ^{[5] [6] [7]} . During the Second World War, she received the official post of military artist. She worked mainly in England, creating Russian-commissioned War Artists' Advisory Committee portraits of civil defense fighters, workers at conveyors at arms factories, etc. In 1946, under a regular agreement with the War Artists' Advisory Committee, Laura Knight joined the journalist group covering the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals. Laura Knight made sketches of scenes in the hall where the tribunal worked. She painted in 1946 an oil painting "The Nuremberg Court" ( Eng. The Nuremberg Trial ) ^{[8] [9] [10]} .

The artist worked until the mid-1950s and throughout her career was committed to a realistic style in art. She created more than 250 paintings, wrote two autobiographies.

• Janet Dunbar: Laura Knight . Collins, 1975, ISBN 978-0-00-211489-9
• Caroline Fox: Dame Laura Knight . Phaidon, Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-7148-2447-X
• Elizabeth Knowles: Laura Knight - In the Open Air . Redcliffe, 2012, ISBN 978-1-906593-65-0

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  Balloon Rise, Coventry, 1943

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  Corporal J.M. Pearson (1940)

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  Peasant woman in the field

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  Portrait of Judge, Lord Lawrence, Nuremberg (1946)

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  Ruby Loftus. Screwing in a breech (1943)

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  Nuremberg Tribunal (1946).

• damelauraknight.com "BIOGRAPHY Dame Laura Knight, DBE, RA, RWS 1877-1970"
• Works by L. Knight in the Tate Gallery