Dame Laura Knight RA

Laura Knight was one of the most important female artists of her generation, a Realist painter who documented life and culture in Britain in the first half of 20th century. Born in Nottingham, she moved to Staithes on the Yorkshire coast and then to Lamorna in Cornwall. In London after WWI she drew and painted the ballet, theatre and circus, subjects she found enduringly fascinating. A war artist during WWII she recorded the contribution made by women to the war effort.

In 1936 Laura Knight was the first woman to be elected to full membership of the Royal Academy since its foundation in 1768. She battled against the structural inequalities of the art world throughout her professional life, from when she was excluded from the life room at Nottingham School of Art in 1891. In 1922 she wrote a pamphlet entitled Can Women Succeed as Artists where she identified inequality of opportunity as a major factor in the near exclusion of women from the arts in Britain. In 1937, she became the first woman to join the selection committee of the R.A. but was not invited to its annual banquet until 1967.

Knight campaigned for greater recognition and status for women in the arts throughout her career and was President of the Society of Women Artists from 1932-1968. Throughout her life she took the opportunity to promote herself and her work, fight for equal renumeration and obtain high-profile commissions.

Additional Information
Imperial War Museum
Art UK
Wikipedia