Knight’s tale
On this day in 2015, a rare painting by one of Derbyshire’s greatest artists was set to be sold at auction. The painting by Long Eatonborn Dame Laura Knight, and which had been given to the owner’s ancestors as a wedding present, was being seen by the public for the first time in 45 years. Here we celebrate the Derbyshire lass who became one of Britain’s most famous and prolific female artists
BORN in Market Place, Long Eaton, on August 4, 1877, Laura Johnson was the youngest of three daughters of Charles and Charlotte Johnson. Her father abandoned the family not long after her birth, and the young Laura grew up amid financial problems.
Her grandfather owned a lace-making factory, but the advent of new technology led to it going bankrupt.
Because Charlotte taught part-time at the Nottingham School of Art, she managed to get her daughter enrolled as an artisan student, paying no fees, aged just 13.
Financial hardship worsened for the Johnson girls following Charlotte’s premature death from cancer, but Laura continued at the art school and went on to meet one of the college’s most promising students, Harold Knight, then aged 17. They became friends and married in 1903.
The couple visited Staithes, on the Yorkshire coast, and Cornwall, where Laura honed her artistic style.
In 1929, she became Dame Laura and was the first female artist to be elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1936.
An impressionist artist best known for her portrayals of London’s theatre and ballet scene, as well as marginal communities, she also produced a recruitment poster for the Women’s Land Army in September 1939, and went on to paint many scenes of service personnel and women working in factories to support the war effort.
Dame Laura died on July 7, 1970, aged 92, three days before a large exhibition of her work opened at Nottingham Castle.