Dame Laura Knight

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21938, 12 November 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

Dame Laura Knight

A HARD-WORKING PAINTER

“ I w r as not, as most people think, born in a circus, suckled by an elephant; neither was I a Risley kid, to be tossed on the feet of an acrobat.” With these words Dame Laura Knight began her book, ‘‘Oil Paint and Grease Paint,” the story of her life. Those who know her work well, will know why this artist needed to tell her readers that she was not born in a circus. Her pictures show clearly how closely she is attached to the life of the circus and the ballet. Dozens of pictures are of acrobats ready for the ropes, ballet girls in their crowded dressing rooms, clowns in their absurd patched clothes, piebald ponies in their stalls, or great flat-backed horses ready for the

ring. Dame Laura Knight is the artist of the circus; but she was not brought up in one. Here is a brief story of her life. She was born, Laura Johnson, in Long Eaton, seven miles from Nottingham, in 1877. There were two older sisters; her father died soon after she was born; thea Mrs Johnson had to return to her mother’s house in Nottingham- Here lived Laura’s grandmother, known to the children as “Big Grandma’’ and her great-grandmother, known as "Little Grandma.” The little one was very old, more than 90, and used to go very slowly down the stairs backwards, clinging to the

banisters. The artist describes an early memory in this way; “My first memory is of sitting on my great-grandmother’s knee —an old brown nut-cracker face, a black can with ribbons and lace hanging over the ears, a shawl and black silk apron, red-mittened hands, long reins flopping above, clip-clop of horse’s hooves.” This was on the way to Nottingham. Mrs Johnson held classes in drawing and painting. She had been to an art school when she was very young (she was married at 17) and had studied in Paris. Painting was her passion and she was bitterly disappointed that her marriage had put an end to her artist’s career. So she determined to give her youngest daughter

every chance to become a painter. The child scribbled with pencils when she was quite small; and soon, when Mrs Johnson had classes in the school with Laura for a pupil, there was difficulty about finding a first prize winner: alwavs Laura was the best, but her mother felt she could not always give the prize to her daughter. There was one motto she taught, her three girls; “work hard, for today never comes again.” Dame Laura Knight says that she never saw her mother idle; “No one ever had a mother so just and so good.” The child Laura was a tom-boy. She would come home from school ripped and bleeding after a wild adventure with rough boys; then she would be punished. People •have said that her boisterousness has shown itself in her work; that she has always had a hand too heavy for a woman. That is the opirfion of some critics. Go to an art gallery where you can see her work, and judge for yourself.

There were not many books; but all she could find the young artist read an-d some she committed to memory. Parts of Dickons she knew by heart and delighted in reciting them. Then came the time to go to France. Laura was 12 and had seen the sea only once, when she was nine and went to Scotland for a holiday. It was very exciting. She was to leave Nottingham with its fairs and circuses and races and was to go to live with an aunt and uncle in France. When she had learnt seme of the language she would go to art school in Paris. That was the plan; but it did not come true as far as Paris was concerned. At St. Quentin, a town on the Somme, 31 miles N.E. of Paris, lived the aunt and uncle. To them Laura went in 1839 with her grandmother. She found France most exciting with the new language (she had learnt French at school, ■

but no one could understand a word of what she said), the “bonnes” and the strangely dangerous streets where she could not venture in the evening alone or even with her bonne Marie (her nurse or maid). On one occasion she did venture and Marie was attacked. Laura made such a hullaballoo that the attacker ran off; but the lesson had been learnt. Then Laura went to boarding school. What agonies she suffered! All the girls were extremely proper; they thought it shocking to run or whistle or jump; they thought it was disgraceful of Laura to strip to the waist to wash in the morning, for their modesty made them dress under a tent made by their nightdresses and then wash only their faces with a damp corner of towel. It was Laura’s turn to be shocked; but she was one among many and could do nothing. Her clothes were untidy or ugly or not in the fashion: at any rate they were not chic or (Continued on page 5)