Evening Talk: The Life and Major Works of Dame Laura Knight

The life and major works of Dame Laura Knight, a lecture by Harry Fletcher.

Laura Knight was born in 1877.  She attended art school in Nottingham at the age of 13.  Her father left the family soon after she was born and then her mother died when she was 15, which meant that she had to give art classes to support herself and her sister.  In 1899 she settled and painted in Staithes, then in 1907 Laura and her husband Harold moved to Newlyn, where there was an established colony of artists.  She painted also in London and in the Malvern Hills and she was a war artist.  Her subjects were landscapes/seascapes, portraits, the theatre, the circus, the races and travelling people.

She was knighted in 1929 and in 1936 she became the first woman to be chosen as a Royal Academician since the founding of the Academy in 1768.  In 1965 there was a large retrospective at the Royal Academy of around 250 of her works, another first for a woman.  Laura died in 1970, aged 92.  In this lecture, Harry Fletcher will cover the main events of her life and discuss her major paintings.