Laura Knight

1 portrait of Laura Knight

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Laura Knight

by Bassano Ltd
half-plate glass negative, 20 February 1936
Given by Bassano & Vandyk Studios, 1974
Photographs Collection
NPG x19413

Sitterback to top

  • Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970), Artist. Sitter in 34 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 3 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Bassano Ltd (active 1901-1962), Photographers. Artist or producer associated with 42746 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • 100 Pioneering Women, p. 102 Read entry

    In 1936 the painter Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) was the first woman fully elected an Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), London, since its foundation in 1768. In 1890, while at art school, she had noted, ‘Women were not allowed to draw from the nude.’ Many years later, in Self Portrait (1913), she depicted herself painting a full-length nude woman – a defining work that was refused by the RA and as late as 1939 dismissed by critics as ‘regrettable’. She married artist Harold Knight in 1903, the year Mother and Child was accepted for the RA summer exhibition and bought by the painter Edward Stott, whom Knight admired. A prolific artist, painter of dancers, gypsies, clowns, the celebrated and the unknown, she exhibited widely and internationally. She was elected to numerous artistic societies and received many awards, including the honour of a damehood in 1929. The War Artists Advisory Committee commissioned her to record the Second World War, and she was appointed war correspondent for The Nuremberg Trial of 1946. Her RA retrospective of 1965 was a first for a woman – a reviewer, for The Times, commenting: ‘few women artists can have delved so widely in the curiosities of life.’

Events of 1936back to top

Current affairs

Following the death of his father George V, Edward succeeds to the throne as King Edward VIII, but chooses to abdicate in order to marry the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. Edward was the only monarch every to voluntarily relinquish the throne.

Art and science

The Spitfire, designed by Reginald Mitchell, has its maiden flight. The RAF and other allied forces used the plane extensively and to great effect during the Second World War.
Television broadcasting begins. Although the BBC had been transmitting television since 1930, regular service did not begin until 1936, when the 'BBC Television Service' (now BBC One) was broadcast from Alexandra Palace.

International

The Spanish Civil War begins. Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, and supported by Italian and German fascist governments, rebelled against the Second Spanish Republic. The conflict lasted until 1939, and anticipated many of the features of the Second World War: fighting between Communists and Fascists, the rise of nationalism and the use of terror tactics against civilians.

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