- 124
Harold Knight, R.A., 1874-1961
Description
- Harold Knight, R.A.
- harvesting the sea
- signed and dated 1900
- oil on canvas
- 135x175cm.; 53x69in.
Catalogue Note
‘How little do we realise the cost of herring on our breakfast plate! For such realisation it is necessary to experience the relentless battering of an equinoctial gale. In late September and early October, the herring shoal, in its tour around England, passes the Yorkshire coast. It is then that a fleet of Herring Cobbles, caught unaware in the North Sea, has short shrift to get back to shore through the white water breaking on the reefs, whose shallows run further than the horizon line. A (wildified) place is Steers as the locals called Staithes.’ (Laura Knight, The Magic of Line, 1965, p. 107)
In 1895 Laura Johnson and her future husband Harold Knight visited the rugged Yorkshire coastal town of Staithes and were truly captivated by the landscape and its people. After their return to London Laura and Harold discussed the prospect of moving permanently to Staithes and after marrying in 1903 they resided there for fourteen years.
The previously unremarkable town of Staithes had been popular with artists since the 1880s. It had attracted painters from the Midlands and the North who wanted to paint similar subjects to those favoured by the plein air painters in Newlyn. Laura summed up the freedom offered by this little town, ‘As long as I can remember I wanted to run wild in a broader life, away from factories, miles from houses in rows, dressed-up shops and the gentility of town where no one knows what their neighbour enjoys or endures. Here in Staithes we share each other’s joys and sorrows.’ (Caroline Fox, Dame Laura Knight, 1988, p. 12) Following the precedent of the Barbizon and Hague School of painters, artists in Staithes sought to paint the everyday life of the working class residents. Harold and Laura both developed a great admiration and fascination with the hardiness of the fisher-folk of whom Laura wrote ‘the majority of its people, both man and woman, dedicated to toil of the hardest as they were, and knowing tragedy at first hand.’ (ibid Knight, p. 107). They believed the fishermen to be the descendants of a Viking race whose ship foundered on the shores and never left, a belief augmented by the sight of one particular example; ‘a majestic figure – six foot tall or more, his shoulders and chest enormous, his features aquiline, his pointed beard red; his eyes are the sort of blue that has a special look – a ‘sea-eye look’ one used for big distances – his skin is bronzed by the sun and toughened by wind and salt water.’ (ibid Knight, p. 109) These mortal Poseidons were the models for the small number of dramatic pictures painted by Harold to convey the brutality of the sea and the strenuous courage of the men who worked upon the herring cobbles. Another of these men was Argy (Isaac) Verrill who the Knights befriended and were permitted to accompany to sea in his old cobble. They would often sit around his fireside eating Herring toasted by his daughter Anna-Margaret and listen to his stories of near-death and to his mighty singing voice. It is likely that Argy posed for the present picture and one or more of the other figures, is probably another fisherman friend Mattie Theaker or John Jones. The present view captures the toughness of the Staithes fishermen and the strenuous work as they toil against the ocean. They are dressed in the clothes that Laura described thus; ‘Bleached by weather and sea-water are the garments worn by both women and men. As for the men’s trousers – never was such a variety of colour found as in the numberless patches.’ (ibid Knight, p. 109)
The pictures painted by Harold Knight in Staithes are rare although several were exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1900 and 1904, including The Last Coble of 1900, Evening, Staithes of 1901 and Unloading Herrings, Scarborough of 1902. A small picture of a similar subject entitled Staithes Pier was sold in these rooms, 9 November 1988, lot 4. By 1905 Knight became more interested in conventional subjects and his interest in these realistic images of ocean life appears to have waned. By 1907 the Knights could no longer bear the tragedy of the deaths of the fishermen who lost their lives out at sea and moved from Staithes, settling in Cornwall. ‘They also never forgot their debt to Staithes and in a private letter to Rowland Hill in August 1950, Laura wrote, “I can never love any part of the world in the same way – to think that we are remembered is a great joy for we were among great people there”’ (Peter Phillips, ‘Early Days and Hard Times at Staithes’, Art & Antiques, 1 October 1977, vol. 29, no. 7, p. 24)