Winifred Knights:
Sheet of studies for design of wall decoration, circa 1918
Framed (ref: 9315)
Pencil
8 1/2 x 11 in. (22 x 28 cm)

Tags: Winifred Knights pencil artists at work design men study women New Stock

Provenance: The Artist's Studio

Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, Winifred Knights, Lund Humphries 2016

Exhibited: Winifred Knights, The Fine Art Society, 1995; no. 12 d

This study is for the earliest of Knights' decorative paintings: Design for Wall Decoration, the Slade Sketch Club Special Figure Subject for January 1918. Knights painted an oil of the Design for Wall Decoration (see below), but the mural itself is unlikely to have been executed - other studies indicate that its intended size was to be 5 x 6 ft (the size of paintings entered for the Scholarship to Rome). The picture is inspired by the Italian Primitives, as the clarity of form, and the thoughtful arrangement of the figures in space indicate. The studies for the composition were probably executed while staying at Lineholt Farm in Worcestershire, between October 1917 and October 1918.