Dame Laura Knight, R.A., R.W.S.

Private collection, Canada

STRUCTURE Original canvas. The paint surface is in good, clean condition with areas of fine impasto. There are a few areas of light craquelure which is stable and only visible on close inspection. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT UV light reveals no sign of retouching, good original condition. FRAME Held in a plaster gilt frame in fair condition. For more information regarding this picture please contact the Victorian & Edwardian Pictures Department on +44 (0)207 293 5718
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'From what I remember of the pictures I exhibited, they were an expression of joie de Vivre from which I was suffering. An ebullient vitality made me want to paint the whole world and say how glorious it was to be young and strong and able to splash with paint on canvas any old thing one saw, without stint of materials or oneself, the result of a year or two of vigour and enjoyment. That particular season the sun had blazed unveiled in the sky.' (Laura Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint, 1936, pp.186-187)

 

In 1907 Laura Knight and her husband Harold moved from Staithes in Yorkshire to take up residence in Newlyn and over the next decade Laura established herself as a painter of sunlight and shadows with a series of airy and radiant paintings of children and women beside the sea. 'In these pictures I put to account what I had begun to learn in Staithes of sunlight and of figures in action, to which study closer observation in Cornwall had been added.' (ibid, p.169) After several years of struggling in Staithes, the relaxed and welcoming atmosphere of Newlyn encouraged the two artists to paint with a renewed vigour and both Laura and Harold established their public reputation with pictures painted during the first few years living in Cornwall. As Caroline Fox has noted; 'Inspired by the beauty and light of West Cornwall, encouraged by the support of fellow artists, and for the first time enjoying an active social life, Laura was able to live every moment to the full. Her art blossomed, showing a greater awareness of light, the use of bright colour and freer, more vigorous brushwork.' (Caroline Fox, Dame Laura Knight, 1988, p.25). In her own words Laura explained her joy in finding a place in which she was inspired and found happiness; 'Cornwall is not like any other sort of country – it's no use trying to compare it with any other place. There are times when you think everything is quite ordinary; and there are times when you feel you are not properly you, but someone else whom you don't in the least know; and an atmosphere prevails which takes away any sense or belief you have ever had, and you don't know why, but you aren't in England any more.' (op. cit. Knight 1965, p.139)

At first the Knights booked into the Mount's Bay Hotel for a few nights while they searched for a suitable place to live. The Knights eventually took lodgings in the village of Paul, at Penzer House a guest house known locally as Beer House, named after the landlady Mrs Beer; 'a small, round person with graying hair screwed back from her face into a tiny bun. I can only describe Mrs. Beer by telling that she was as-unlike-anybody-else-a-person-as-you-could-hope-to-meet-in-a-lifetime. She was delightful, but crazifying! To attain indulgence in her cleanliness and comfort of her beds, to be allowed to taste her food - 'French cooking, me dears'- and to be given the privilege of wiping your feet on one of the many front-door mats bestrewing her hallway, conferred a peculiar cachet to her lodgers. She wasn't going to have any sort of person coming across her doorstep.' (op. cit. Knight 1965, p.137) Beer House became the centre for much social activity in Newlyn for a time and a band was even organised with; 'penny whistle, hair comb, drums of any old canvas, and song. There was only a thin wall between our sitting room and Mrs. Beer's bedroom, but she always went to bed early. We need never have worried about disturbing her, for after some months of this practice, she assured us: 'I love music, me dears!' (op. cit. Knight 1965, p.138). Mrs Beer's lodging house stood on high ground facing the sea; 'From her house the whole stretch of the bay could be seen and grey Penzance transformed by the changing effects of light into a pearly city, the line of hills beyond, the coast, the sweep of the Lizard Arm and, at night, the wink of the lighthouse.' (Laura Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint, 1936, p.165)

Laura Knight painted In the Sun, Newlyn on Paul Hill above Beer House, looking down on the old pier and with Newlyn bay and Penzance beyond. Three children are idling in the summer sunshine and appear to be wearing matching school uniforms. The picture dates from around 1909 when Knight first moved to Newlyn and is the only picture from this seminal period to remain in private ownership. In 1909 Knight exhibited the first important picture that she had painted in Newlyn, the large and radiant picture of young girls dressed in smocks and sun-hats playing on a Cornish beach, The Beach (FIG 1. Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne). The young models for this painting are almost certainly the same children that posed for In the Sun, Newlyn and also Flying a Kite (National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town) exhibited in 1910 with The Boys (Johannesburg Art Gallery). 

It was the pictures painted by Knight in 1909 and 1910 that Alfred Munnings' admired, after he saw The Beach hanging at the Royal Academy. Unlike her husband Harold, Laura was beguiled by Munnings' roguish charm and was delighted by his company. The Knights first met Munnings one Sunday afternoon when they were returning from taking lunch with Lamorna Birch and they saw the artist, accompanied by a bevy of pretty girls, striding towards them dressed in a black and white checked suit with velvet collar, cuffs and pocket flaps. Laura was impressed by the sight and surprised to find him sitting in Harold's chair when they reached Mrs Beer's lodgings. Munnings introduced himself and explained that Mrs Beers had agreed to let him rent rooms there and that he would be their neighbour. The friendship of artists like Munnings had a positive influence upon Laura's work and gave her confidence to paint with a more Impressionistic bravura. Munnings said of Knight's pictures at this date; 'It was real sunlight that she represented.' This is very much evident in the present picture depicting a pleasant and naturalistic scene of carefree youth.