© reproduced with permission of the estate of Dame Laura Knight, DBE, RA, 2012. All rights reserved
Harold Knight painted this atmospheric portrait of his wife, the celebrated artist Laura Knight (1877-1970), in the years leading up to or soon after their marriage took place in 1903.
Knight met Laura at Nottingham School of Art, where the pair studied. In 1894 they took a holiday in Staithes, a fishing village just north of Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. The village had become a magnet for artists experimenting with the Impressionist technique of painting outdoors, and Laura and Harold soon returned to live and work there.
The Knights remained in Yorkshire until 1907, and are now regarded as the most significant artists of the Staithes Group. The Pannett Art Gallery is the only public gallery to own comprehensive holdings of work by the group, and this portrait of Laura by Harold Knight, painted during the period they lived in Staithes, now makes a major addition to the collection.
Provenance
Rosie Good, a former pupil of Laura Knight, and Oliver Shepherd, sculptor and close friend of Harold Knight; with the Peter Phillips Gallery, London 1970s; sold to a private collector; sold Bonhams, London in 2018 to Rupert Maas.