Inscribed on the backboard, By Harold Knight RA, presented to Dily Cumming by Colwin and Rosaleen Sheppard
Oil on panel, 9 1/2 x 7 in. (24 x 17.8 cm.)
Tags: Harold Knight oil panel children interiors men portraits study
Provenance: Colwin and Rosaleen Sheppard; private collection France
Knight was born in Nottingham, England, the son of an architect, and
studied at Nottingham School of Art under Wilson Foster. It was at the
School of Art that he met fellow artist, Laura Johnson, whom he married
in 1903
After spending time in Paris, studying art under
Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin-Constant, then at Staithes on the North
Yorkshire coast, in 1907 Harold and Laura Knight moved to Newlyn, a
fishing port in Cornwall where they became part of the Newlyn School.
During
the First World War, Knightâs principles led him to be a conscientious
objector, which earned him the rebuke of many of his colleagues and
former friends, and put a strain on his physical and mental health as he
was forced to work as a farm labourer. When the War ended, he and Laura
moved to London, although they frequently returned to Cornwall to
paint.
Knight was elected a Royal Academician in 1931, and died on 3 October 1961 in Colwall, Herefordshire.
