Laura Knight
1877 - 1970
Dame Laura Knight Knight studied at Nottingham School of Art in 1900, and there met Harold Knight. After marrying in 1903, they joined an artists' colony at Staithes, Yorkshire, before moving in 1908 to Newlyn, Cornwall. In 1929 she was created Dame of the British Empire, and in 1936 became the first woman elected to full membership of the Royal Academy. Her subjects included Gypsies, dancers and circus performers. During the war, her popularity and distinguished career made her an obvious choice for the War Artists Advisory Committee, who tasked British artists with recording the war. In 1945 she asked to record the trial of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg. Her 1965 retrospective at the RA was the first accorded to a woman.
Text © National Portrait Gallery, London
