ART “4”
“2”-DAY 04 August
v.8.70 |
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Baptized as an infant on 04 August 1611:
Jan van den Hoecke, Antwerp painter
and draftsman who died in 1651. He was active also in Italy and Austria.
— Relative? of Gaspar van den Hoecke [1595-1648]? — He may have received his first training from his father, the Antwerp painter Caspar van den Hoecke (fl 1595–1648), who also taught his half-brother Robert van den Hoecke [1622–1668]; he then became a student of Rubens. Together with his father, Jan contributed to the decorations for The Joyous Entry of Ferdinand into Antwerp in 1635: the monumental figures of the King of Hungary and the Cardinal-Infante on the Arch of Ferdinand were by Jan. The draftsman-like precision of the details is characteristic of his manner of working, while he hardly bothered to paint in the inner forms once they had been established. Other early works from this Antwerp period include the oil sketch of The Triumph of David. — LINKS — The Triumph of David (1635, 58x80cm) _ This painting, which had been assigned to Rubens and to Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, has recently been reattributed to Jan van den Hoecke, who worked in Rome and then served the Hapsburg court, first in Vienna and later in Brussels. This attribution, which remains contested, may be confirmed with further research regarding Rubens's Antwerp studio. In this painting, David is welcomed at the city gates of Jerusalem by young women who celebrate his victory over Goliath with music and dance, and throw roses at his feet. This oil sketch is one of a series of Old Testament subjects of similar dimensions by this artist that includes Moses, Aaron, and Miriam Celebrate the Crossing of the Red Sea and David Playing the Harp to Cure Saul's Melancholy. The Triumph of Saul has also been associated with this series; however, the figures are painted on a smaller scale. — Hercules between Vice and Virtue (154x194cm) — Triumphal Entrance of Cardinal Prince Ferdinand of Spain into Antwerp (1635, 405x328cm) — Lute-playing Woman (66x76cm) — .The Massacre of the Innocents (1611, 142x182cm) was long thought to be by van den Hoecke (and that is still the opinion of some), but Sotheby's decided that it was by Rubens [28 Jun 1577 – 30 May 1640] and as such, on 10 July 2002, auctioned it for $76.7 million, the third-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction and the highest auction price ever for an old master painting. |
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Died on 04 August 1821: Richard Cosway,
English miniaturist, draftsman, dealer, and collector, born on 05 November
1742. He studied under Thomas
Hudson. — Richard Cosway and his wife, Maria Louisa Caterina Cecilia Hadfield Cosway [1759 – 05 Jan 1838], were successful artists who established a fashionable salon in their London home in the 1780s and 1790s. Richard Cosway is best known for his ‘stained’ drawings. Probably the son of a schoolmaster, he showed a precocious talent for drawing and studied at Shipley’s Drawing School in the Strand, where he won several prizes. He attended the Richmond House academy, set up by Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, where he met Giovanni Battista Cipriani. He first exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1760, showing there again between 1767 and 1779. He also showed at the Free Society of Artists between 1761 and 1766. In 1769 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, becoming an ARA in 1770, when he began to exhibit at the Academy, and RA the following year. In 1781 Cosway married the Anglo-Florentine artist Maria Cosway, née Hadfield, and they moved in 1784 to Schomberg House, Pall Mall, which became a center for fashionable London society. In 1786 he made a brief visit to Paris and in 1791 he moved to a larger house in Stratford Place, London. — LINKS — Self-portrait (1775, oval 5x4.2cm) — Portrait of a Gentleman, his Wife and Sister, in the Character of Fortitude introducing Hope as the Companion to Distress (`The Witts Family Group') (1775, 118x104cm; 512x447pix, 28kb) _ Although principally a portrait miniaturist, Richard Cosway also produced some larger-scale works in oil. This allegorical portrait was painted following the death of a young London linen draper, Broome Witts, in 1769. Witts is shown here in the role of Fortitude, introducing his sister Sarah in the guise of Hope (left) to his wife Elizabeth, depicted as Distress. This memorial image was presumably commissioned by one or both of these ladies. — A Lady (Harriet Mellon?) as a Sibyl (1805, 76x62cm; 512x421pix, 25kb) _ Cosway's speciality was full-length miniature portraits in pencil, the faces finished in delicate watercolor. Here he tackles a portrait in a rather more ambitious format, presenting the young sitter as the muse of dancing or, perhaps, of lyric poetry, with attendant putti. The idea of depicting modern personalities in this classical disguise had been recommended by Sir Joshua Reynolds as an appropriate means of conferring intellectual dignity on pictures of pretty young ladies. This is an unfinished sketch, but as in Cosway's miniatures the face has been accorded detailed attention. –- Unknown Lady of the Sotheby or Isted Families (6.3x5cm) —{070801) |
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Born on 04 August 1853: John
Henry
Twachtman, US
Impressionist
painter and printmaker who died on 18 August 1902. — He began as a painter of window-shades but developed one of the most personal and poetic visions in US landscape painting, portraying nature on canvases that were, in the words of Childe Hassam, ‘strong, and at the same time delicate even to evasiveness’. His first artistic training was under Frank Duveneck, with whom he studied first in Cincinnati and then in Munich (1875–1877). His absorption of the Munich style, characterized by bravura brushwork and dextrous manipulation of pigment, with the lights painted as directly as possible into warm, dark grounds derived from Frans Hals and Courbet, is reflected in such paintings as Venice Landscape (1878) and Landscape (1882). Later he studied under Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. — Born in in Cincinnati to German immigrant parents, Twachtman received early artistic training in his hometown. He began his career decorating window shades and studied drawing at the Ohio Mechanics Institute and McMicken School of Design. In 1875, Frank Duveneck, a friend and teacher, invited the young artist to accompany him to Munich. Twachtman readily adopted the characteristic dark palette and rapid, open brushwork of Munich colleagues. After refining his painting skills on a trip to Venice in 1877, he returned to the United States and developed a forceful, realist manner, capturing the energy of city life in New York and Cincinnati. Like many great painters [and many more not-so-great], Twachtman was never fully appreciated or well known in his lifetime. His work, which went beyond the representation of things, had a searching, abstract quality that was poorly understood. Fellow painter Edward Simmons recalled walking up and down Fifth Avenue in New York with Twachtman, hoping to sell one of Twachtman's landscapes for $25. Twachtman hungered after fame and fortune and was embittered by his failure to achieve them, even in his hometown. In Cincinnati, he once complained, "A good many people, all of them supposed to be up in art matters, have seen my paintings, but I am convinced they care little for them. This is a very old foggied place and only one kind of art is considered good. The old Dusseldorf School comes in for its full share of honor." Twachtman went to Paris in 1883 with his wife and son to study with the popular teachers associated with the Academic Julian. Twachtman continued to improve his drawing skills, and the works from this period reflect an increasing interest in composition. The salon-size landscape painting Arques-la-Bataille represents the pinnacle of Twachtman's French period. Its stark composition and tonal palette reveal the influence of James McNeill Whistler as well as the flattened spaces and decorative patterns of Japanese art. As seen in Along the River, Winter, Twachtman was especially fond of winter landscapes. He explained to Weir in a letter, "We must have snow and lots of it. Never is nature more lovely than when it is snowing. Everything is so quiet and the whole earth seems wrapped in a mantle, all nature is hushed to silence." Twachtman moved back to the United States in 1885 and, after living in various places, moved his family to Greenwich, Connetticut, in 1889 or 1890. Family life at his 7-hectare estate in Greenwich provided the leading subject matter for his art through the next decade. He returned to specific sites on the property and painted them repeatedly during different weather conditions and changing seasons, seeking to convey his personal reponse to the sensuous aspects of nature. By the mid-1890s, Twachtman's career became fully identified with the Impressionist movement, and US critics often compared him to Monet. Twachtman's brush- work, however, usually differed from the broken strokes of other US Impressionists. He varied his paint application from rich, tactile strokes to dry, chalky surfaces. His palette brightened during the 1890s when he often depicted close-up views of flowers, corners of the garden, and other favorite spots on the farm, as in The White Bridge and Waterfall, Blue Brook. By 1897, Twachtman became a founding member of "The Ten American Painters" (or "The Ten"), a group of artists who seceded from the Society of American Artists and exhibited together for the next 20 years. Of "The Ten," Weir, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, and Twachtman were united by their rejection of descriptive art in favor of more subjective, innovative interpretations of nature. Twachtman created some of his most bold and experimental works for inclusion in this group's landmark exhibitions. Beginning in 1900, Twachtman spent his summers in the artist colony of Glouchester, Massachusetts. A boldness and spontaneity is evident in his late Gloucester subjects, which are among the strongest and most aggressive works of his career. In these paintings he returned to the broadly brushed style of his Munich period and reintroduced black into his palette to capture the grittier images of life in Gloucester's commercial fishing docks. As in Wild Cherry Tree or Harbor View Hotel, his use of daring compositions with simplified, geometric abstractions suggests his innate understanding of 20th century modernism. Twachtman, estranged from his family, was living in Gloucester when he died suddenly, a bitter and lonely man. — Ernest Lawson was a student of Twachtman. — LINKS –- The White Bridge (1895, 77x77cm; 859x855pix, 134kb — .ZOOM to 1964x1957pix, 816kb) –- The White Bridge (1898, 77x77cm; 805x800pix, 71kb — .ZOOM to 1208x1200pix, 120kb) — yet another The White Bridge (1900, 77x64cm) –- Waterfall, Blue Brook (1900, 64x76cm; 878x1050pix, 74kb) — Beneath the Snow — Gloucester Harbor (1900) — Canal, Venice (1878) — The Grand Canal (1878) — Springtime (1884) — Wild Flowers (1892) — In the Sunlight (1893, 76x63cm; 600x503pix, 73kb) — Arques~la~Bataille — Oyster Boats, North River (1878, 41x61cm) — Mother and Child — Gloucester Harbor (1900) — On the Terrace (1897) — Windmills, Dordrecht (1881, 36x51cm) — In The Greenhouse (1895, 64x41cm) –- S#*> Gloucester, Fishermen's Houses (1900, 64x64cm; x799pix, 132kb) |
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Died on 04 August 1795: Francisco
Bayeu y Subías, Spanish painter and tapestry designer
baptized as an infant on 09 March 1734, brother-in-law of Goya.
Francisco Bayeu was one of the most successful Spanish artists, along with
Mariano Salvador Maella, at the court of Charles III (King of Spain 1759–1788),
where the presence and influence of foreign artists, such as Giambattista
Tiepolo and Anton Raphael Mengs, were still very strong, although this situation
was slowly changing. Like his younger brothers, Fray Manuel Bayeu y Subías
[08 Jan 1740 – 1809] and Ramón Bayeu y Subías [23 May 1746
– 02 Mar 1793] (who was at one time his assistant), he was trained
in the studio of Juan Andrés Merklein [–1797], a painter from Bohemia
living in Saragossa, and then with José Martínez Luzán [1710–1785], a little-known
Aragonese painter who had been in Italy. — In 1758 Francisco Bayeu y Subías he won first prize in painting and a scholarship to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, with his picture The Tyranny of Geryon (1758). There he studied under António González Velázquez. In 1759 he returned to Saragossa and married Sebastiana Merklein, the daughter of his former teacher. In 1763 Bayeu went back to Madrid where he was invited by Mengs to work under his direction in the Palacio Real, mainly as a painter of frescoes. There he began work on one of his most important early royal commissions, Olympus: The Fall of the Giants (1764), a ceiling fresco in one of the public chambers of the Prince of the Asturias. The quality of the highly finished sketch for this, with its delicate impasto and loose brushwork, indicates Bayeu’s early talent. In 1765 he was made a member of and taught at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. In 1767 he was appointed Pintor de Cámara, and he began painting the fresco depicting the Apotheosis of Hercules in the Palacio Real (1769). Among other commissions for ceiling decorations in the palace was Apollo Rewarding the Arts (fresco, 1769). His style as a fresco painter was formed in the Italian painterly tradition of Corrado Giaquinto, passed on through Bayeu’s teacher González Velázquez and combined with the cooler Neo-classical style represented in Madrid by Mengs. — The students of Francisco Bayeu included Francisco de Goya, Juan Antonio Ribera y Fernández, Fernando Selma. — Portrait of Bayeu (1795, 112x84cm, 1187x850pix, 143kb) (probably posthumous and based on a self-portrait) by Goya, who had painted a previous portrait of Bayeu in 1786. — LINKS — Olympus: The Fall of the Giants (1764, 68x123cm) _ This painting is a sketch for a ceiling fresco in the Royal Palace in Madrid. It represents the Gigantomachia, the primordial battle between the gods (the Giants) on Mount Olympus. — Saint James being visited by the Virgin with a Statue of the Madonna of the Pillar (506x750pix, 50kb) _ Signed on the reverse 'Franciscus Bayeu fecit Caesaraugustae Anno MDCCLX' _ Legend credited Saint James with bringing Christianity to Spain. When passing through Zaragoza he was visited by the Virgin, who gave him with a statuette of herself on a jasper column. An enormous basilica has grown on the site, one of the most venerated shrines in Spain. The subject is therefore popular in Zaragoza. Sketches made by Antonio Gonzales Velasquez in 1753 for frescoes in the dome seem to have influenced Bayeu's design. This was a perhaps a private version of these works. It also shows the influence of Giaquinto on Bayeu. –- La Reddition de Grenade (1492, ovale 98x111cm; 1000x1142pix, 69kb) _ Esquisse pour le décor du plafond de la troisième antichambre de la reine-mère Isabelle Farnèse, aujourd'hui salle à manger d'apparat, au Palais Royal de Madrid. L'épisode représenté est particulièrement important pour l'histoire de l'Espagne puisqu'il clôt la grande entreprise de reconquête contre les Maures, commencée au début du millénaire. — Almuerzo en el campo (37x56cm) _ Bayeu supervised the preparation of cartoons for the royal tapestry factory, which had been founded by Philip V, but was not finally organized until 1775, and where Bayeu succeeded Mengs as director in 1777. This painting is a sketch to a tapestry painted in Rococo style. |
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>Born on 04 August 1877: Dame
Laura Johnson Knight “Orovida”, English painter
and designer who died on 07 July 1970. — She was born Laura Johnson, in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, and later moved with her mother and two sisters to Nottingham. She attended Nottingham School of Art in 1880 where she met her future husband, the painter Harold Knight [1874-1961]. They arrived in Newlyn in 1907 attracted by the more energetic climate of the Newlyn colony when compared to Staithes, a little fishing village on the Yorkshire coast where she had previously worked. The Knights stayed in West Cornwall until 1918, living first in Newlyn but later joining the growing colony at Lamorna. She is best known for her coastal scenes and later her circus paintings. — She studied at Nottingham College of Art from 1889. In 1894 the deaths of her mother and grandmother left her dependent on her own earnings, and she taught art from a studio in the Castle Rooms, Nottingham. From 1903 she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, London, and in the same year married Harold Knight [1874–1961]; they lived in an artists' community in Staithes, north Yorkshire, until 1907, also spending time in another community in Laren, Netherlands. They then moved to Newlyn, Cornwall, attracted by the presence of a number of prominent artists. The couple exhibited together at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1912. Although Knight painted various subjects, her reputation was founded on paintings of the ballet and the circus, which became predominant after she moved to London. Technically of a high standard, her narrative realist works were painted in bright colors and have limited depth of expression (e.g. Ballet, 1936). She painted backstage during the Diaghilev ballet's seasons in London and took lessons at Tillers Dancing Academy in St Martin's Lane in order to draw there; she also travelled with the Mills and Carmos Circus. In the 1930s she started painting horses and gypsies at the races, as in Gypsy (1939). An accomplished portrait painter, she painted wartime commissions and was the official artist at the Nuremberg War-crime Trials. She also did etchings (e.g. Some Holiday, aquatint, 1925) and executed designs for stained-glass windows. — She studied at Nottingham College of Art from 1889. In 1894 the deaths of her mother and grandmother left her dependent on her own earnings, and she taught art from a studio in the Castle Rooms, Nottingham. From 1903 she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, London, and in the same year married the painter Harold Knight [1874–1961]; they lived in an artists’ community in Staithes, north Yorkshire, until 1907, also spending time in another community in Laren, Netherlands. They then moved to Newlyn, Cornwall, attracted by the presence of a number of prominent artists. The couple exhibited together at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1912. Although Knight painted various subjects, her reputation was founded on paintings of the ballet and the circus, which became predominant after she moved to London. Technically of a high standard, her narrative realist works were painted in bright colors and have limited depth of expression (e.g. Ballet, 1936). She painted backstage during the Diaghilev ballet’s seasons in London and took lessons at Tillers Dancing Academy in St. Martin’s Lane in order to draw there; she also traveled with the Mills and Carmos Circus. In the 1930s she started painting horses and gypsies at the races, as in Gypsy (1939). An accomplished portrait painter, she painted wartime commissions and was the official artist at the Nuremberg War-crime Trials. She also did etchings (e.g. Some Holiday, aquatint, 1925) and made designs for stained-glass windows. — LINKS — Self-portrait (1913, 60x60cm; 600x591pix, 136kb) _ Knight used bright colors and energetic brushstrokes to convey her vivacious {but square, 60x60} personality. In her 1936 autobiography, Knight wrote: “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 Cruel Sea (76x64cm; 868x715pix, 38kb) _ This view shows the cliff and sea by Sennen Cove, near Lands End, Cornwall. During the 1920s Knight kept a studio locally which she visited from London in the summer months. Earlier, from 1908 until about 1918, she had been a member of the art colony at Newlyn, near Penzance. She wrote: “I had a passionate love of the sea... Cornwall in beauty so fancified is an easy part of the country for an artist to live in.” During the late 1910s and early 1920s Knight painted a series of similar clifftop views. Unlike The Cruel Sea, however, they usually include sitting or reclining female models. Whether populated of unpopulated these pictures effectively evoke the impression of light reflecting off the moving ocean and adjacent rockfaces. The artist's fresh, striking colors and thrilling, unconventional canted viewpoints give a distinctly modern feel to an essentially traditional subject. –- Sennen Cove (1917, 51x61cm; 1278x1575pix, 228kb) _ The small fishing village Sennen is a little way up the coast from Land’s End and was a favorite spot for a number of the Newlyn artists. Having moved to Cornwall from Staithes in 1907, Laura Knight and her husband Harold painted all along the coastline of West Penwith and many of the locations appear over and over again. Knight began about 1916 what became a series of paintings that take a high viewpoint down over a stretch of coastline. These paintings are almost always in a bright palette and show full sunshine, and often have figures of stylishly dressed girls sitting on the cliff-top. Sennen Cove takes a similar high viewpoint, looking down Cove Hill towards the harbor. The white-painted thatched building in the center of the painting is The Old Success Inn and the brightness of the white walls in the strong sun allows this building to act as a central point for the whole composition. Inviting the viewer to wander through the rough lanes and between the buildings, Knight gradually peoples the village with a wide range of activity and much as one might look over the scene in real life, slowly taking in the details, so here the sense of observation steadily grows. By the harbor, people watch as boats are pulled ashore. Outside the inn, children play and nets dry on the beached boats. Clothes blow on a washing line and buckets are carried up the hill. As one moves across the painting, the village comes to life with figures, dogs, chickens and even a horse and cart slowly making its way out of the right hand side of the view. The handling of the paint resembles other paintings of about 1917 such as On The Cliffs. The broad and liquid strokes of the foreground show a good deal of freedom and other details, in particular the colors and handling of the sea, are similar. The variety of paint handling is also worthy of note, moving from the thick impasto of the wave crests and the stone walls to the scrubbed corrugated roof in the middle distance. The Knights left Cornwall in 1919 for London, allowing Harold to build up his portrait practice which gave the couple their basic income. However, they retained their studios at Lamorna Cove for some years and Laura continued to exhibit Cornish subjects at the Royal Academy right up to her death. _ Few experts believe the pseudonymous “Mad” Laurapas Jensonge Chevalier when he claims that the dame had a nightmare of a double disaster hitting the cove and that the first version of this picture, which she suppressed as “too crazy” was _ Sennen Cove in the First Instant of a Knightmarish Simultaneous Earthquake and Red Tide (1916, 51x61cm; 1278x1575pix, 287kb). –- On the Cliffs (1916, 74x53cm; 1575x1094pix, 126kb) _ The move south to Cornwall from Staithes in 1907 meant a new life that was immediately reflected in Laura's painting. Enraptured by the glowing sunlight and sparkling seas of Cornwall, she relished the opportunity to work en plein air, and it is the paintings of girls on cliff tops, painted in situ, that have come to epitomize this period of her career. When working in the oil medium, Knight's style became dramatically more vigorous during these years; her watercolors, in contrast, are remarkable in their serenity and poise. The extreme refinement and delicacy of her watercolors contrast with the much broader brushwork of her oil paintings, and her Cornish watercolors are some of the finest she ever produced. _ Mad Chevalier admits to have fantasmagorically transformed the humdrum sky of Knight's picture, resulting in _ On the Cliffs Under a Fiercely Colorful Sky (2008, 74x53cm; 1575x1094pix, 370kb _ .ZOOM to 2275x1580pix, 652kb) –- S#*> Lamorna Cove aka Children Swimming (1915, 98x138cm; 900x1285pix, 273kb) _ Painted from the quayside beneath Tregurnow Cliff, Lamorna Cove belongs to a series of coastal paintings undertaken by Laura Knight that all share a high viewpoint, a sunny palette and a distinct air of joie-de-vivre. Laura and her husband Harold had moved to Cornwall from Staithes in 1907 and had there stumbled upon not only a pristine, unspoilt landscape but a seductively relaxed way of life that was to have a profound impact on their work. There came over their work an utter change in both their outlook and method: they at once plunged into a riot of brilliant sunshine of opulent color and sensuous gaiety. The unique quality of the glowing West Cornwall light, so different from that in Yorkshire, prompted Laura to take up the mantle of the Newlyn School with enthusiasm, always working out of doors (while Harold concentrated on interiors), and using her studio only to add her finishing touches. The effect of the golden sunlight shining on the irridescent sea is one that Laura embraced repeatedly. Here, in Lamorna Cove she translates her vision into vigorous carefree brushstrokes of flamboyant color that spread unchecked across the bulk of this unusually large canvas like an ode to mid-summer. With an effective variation in the handling, she succeeds in contrasting the brilliant translucence of the shimmering sea rendered in an almost pointillist technique, with the far broader, flatter treatment of the distant static landscape. As the eye roams there are details of topographical interest to focus and guide the eye: the protruding end of the jetty, the far rocky shoreline and a group of white cottages in the upper left hand corner. Meanwhile in the fore- and middle-ground a flurry of human activity brings the scene alive and instils in the viewer the sense of the moment. The swimmers, apparently male, are an instant reminder of Henry Scott Tuke and his many scenes of bathers on Cornish beaches painted about this time. Though Laura's distant viewpoint in Lamorna Cove is altogether different from the one usually adopted by Tuke, there are nevertheless parallel references to be made with contemporary debates about healthy living, and the mantra of “healthy body, healthy mind”. The impressionistic handling of the paint in Lamorna Cove resembles closely other paintings of 1915 ond 1916 such as Spring (1916). This is one of the largest and most celebratory of all Knight’s depictions of the glorious Cornish coast. — Spring (1916, 152x183cm; 624x768pix, 37kb) _ Laura Knight conceived the idea of a large scale picture representing spring while living in North Yorkshire about 1900 when she was in her early twenties. However the painting was not begun until 1915, by which time she and her husband Harold Knight had set up a studio in Cornwall. The artist wrote, “This picture was painted during the World’s War No. 1. At that time it was against the law to paint out of doors anywhere near the Cornish Coast. And to get the material I needed... I had to lie on my stomach under a gorse or any other convenient bush, in dread of being taken off to prison.” –- S#*> Switch Works (1945, 153x113cm; 745x521pix, 105kb) _ During World War II Laura Knight undertook a series of commissions for the War Office Records depicting factory workers involved in the war effort. Her style of realism and attention to meticulous detail was particularly well-suited to the task of recording the mechanical equipment and the highly skilled tasks of the (often female) workers. Most famous of these, Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring (1943), shows a young female worker carrying out one of the most highly skilled, traditionally male jobs in the Royal Ordnance factory with cool determination and confidence. So admired were Knight's official commissions for the War Office that she was also approached by a number of private industrial firms looking for their own commemorative record of the war years. The present work, commissioned by Ellison Ltd, an electrical engineering company specialising in switchgear, is a classic example of its type and one of the last to be undertaken before Knight left for Germany in January 1946 to record the Nuremberg trials. –- S#*> Gypsy Wagon and Tent (1962, 56x76cm; 642x900pix, 156kb) _ Knight had been fascinated by gypsies for many years and had drawn and painted them at Ascot race meetings from the comfort of a shining Rolls Royce, owned by her friend Mr Sully who owned a garage and hired out the vehicle. This royal meeting was a special occasion for the gypsies; they came in their bright satin gala dresses, hair elaborately arranged with curls soaped to their cheeks, their sharp black eyes alert for police as they made a round of parked cars which had passengers standing on top. Out came a crystal from a hidden pocket, and a wheedling voice offered to tell fortunes, forbidden by law. They never bothered Laura at her easel in the Rolls; she was a source of money in another way, for now she asked gypsies of different ages to pose for her, and paid them. More important still, they knew that she liked and admired Romany folk. The gypsies liked Knight (and the fees she paid them) so much that they invited her to paint them in the privacy of their camp on the Common at Iver in Buckinghamshire and it was probably there that she painted this work. — The Gypsy (1939, 61x41cm; 768x489pix, 23kb) _ this gypsy is a man. –- S#*> Ice Hockey (64x76cm; 736x900pix, 200kb) — Men Working in a China-Clay Pit (1912) |
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