Laura Knight. An artist's life on the edge - Sacha Llewellyn and Linda Falcone in conversation
Spring Term, sees the return of the Royal Drawing School series of Creative Conversations; online dialogues between artists, curators and writers. Curated by Dr Claudia Tobin, lectures are held Wednesday evenings live on Zoom.
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War-effort women and ballerinas, circus performers, Gypsies and Nuremburg criminals: during her 70-year career, Laura Knight (1877–1970) captured the spirit of her times, as one of the most famous British painters of her day. The conversation begins with a question posed by Knight herself: 'Now that womenkind are no longer born to hold a needle in one hand and a scrubbing brush in the other, what great things may not happen?'
Laura Knight, 'A Balloon Site', Coventry , 1943, Oil on canvas, IWM, Photo courtesy IWM. © Crown Copyright. IWM.
From humble beginnings, at barely thirteen she was the youngest pupil enrolled at the prestigious Nottingham School of Art. She went on to become the first woman to be elected to full membership of the Royal Academy, and the first female artist to be made a Dame of the British Empire. Knight's subjects are multifaceted, but her life's purpose was steadfast and singular: 'I paint Today'. She is currently the subject of a major monographic exhibition 'Laura Knight, A panoramic view' at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, the first since the large retrospective of her work at the Royal Academy in 1965, the first for a woman.
This Creative Conversation is part of the 'Restoration Conversations' series with Linda Falcone, organised by Calliope Arts, in partnership with Royal Drawing School and the MK Gallery, in celebration of Knight's retrospective, open until 20 February 2022. Linda’s guest is art historian and curator Sacha Llewellyn, whose essay, 'Dame Laura's One Man's Show' can be found in the exhibition's catalogue.
Laura Knight, 'Chloe', 1926, Oil on canvas, Private Collection. © Photo courtesy Christie’s Images Limited. Reproduced with permission of The Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA 2021.
Laura Knight, 'Ella Ardelty on the high trapeze', Undated. Oil on canvas. Private Collection. © Photo courtesy Sotheby's Reproduced with permission of The Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA 2021.
Author Linda Falcone is creator and coordinator of ‘Restoration Conversations’, a project sponsored by Calliope Arts, which advocates and documents the restoration of women’s creative achievements in all fields. Former director of Advancing Women Artists (2007-2021), Linda is the author of several books on Italian culture and co-author, with J. Fortune, of Art by Women in Florence and When the World Answered: Women Artists and the 1966 Flood, which became a PBS documentary.
Sacha Llewellyn is a Paris-based feminist art historian who studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art. As well as co-founding Liss Llewellyn in 1991, she has worked internationally as a curator and author, and was the recipient of the William M B Berger Prize for British Art History in 2017.
This lecture is organised in partnership with
Cover image: Laura Knight, 'The Cornish Coast', 1917. Oil on canvas. © On loan from and photo courtesy Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales. Reproduced with permission of The Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA.