Description
The redoubtable Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) was a great celebrity in her time
and her work is loved as much today as it was at the height of her fame. From her earliest days she wanted to paint in the open air and when she arrived in Cornwall with Harold Knight in 1907 she embraced its wonderful light, its seas and rocky coast as well as plunging into the colourful life of the artists there.
Legends about her abound, from her early days in Nottingham, extreme penury and a long struggle for success with her work, to recognition at the Royal Academy and high praise for her work as a war artist. She had a long exhibiting career, with a number of prestigious commissions including the defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg war trials after the Second World War. The wide and beautiful panoramas of English farmland spread out below the Malvern Hills inspired her golden years as a painter.
This beautifully and comprehensively illustrated book sets out to present the work Laura Knight made in the open air throughout her long working life. It includes paintings made in her early days at Staithes on the Yorkshire coast, at Laren in rural Holland, in the far west of Cornwall and in the Malvern Hills. She
also depicted the Romany life, and was fascinated by the lives of the people she painted. The wide range of her œuvre is also illustrated with examples from the theatre, ballet and the circus.
Published to coincide with an exhibition at Penlee House Gallery.
ISBN 978-1-906593-65-0
270 x 210mm
128 pages
softback
