Knight, Dame Laura

Knight, Dame Laura (née Johnson) (b Long Eaton, Derbyshire, 4 Aug. 1877; d London, 7 July 1970). British painter and printmaker. In the first half of the 20th century she was one of the most highly regarded of British artists and in 1936 she became the first woman to be elected a Royal Academician since the two original women members, Angelica Kauffmann and Mary Moser. At the height of her considerable fame (she was regarded as a ‘character’—the nearest equivalent to a female Augustus John) she won great popularity for her colourful scenes of circus life and the ballet, but these now often seem rather corny. On the other hand, her early Newlyn School landscapes and beach scenes, which at their best have a sparkling sense of joie de vivre, have recently come back into favour (she lived in Newlyn 1907–18). Some of the work she did as an Official War Artist during the Second World War is also now highly regarded. In 1946 she went to Nuremberg to make a pictorial record of the War Criminals' Trial; she made scores of sketches from which she produced a large painting (The Dock, Nuremberg, 1946, Imperial War Mus., London). Her husband Harold Knight (1874–1961), whom she married in 1903, was also a painter, mainly of portraits.