Private
Laura Knight
(1877 - 1970)
Land Army Girl Ploughing, 1942
Private Collection
Laura Knight (1877 - 1970)
Size:
Height – 51.5cm
Width – 41cm
During World War II, Dame Laura Knight was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) to document the British war effort. Her work focused particularly on women’s contributions, celebrating their resilience and determination in roles traditionally occupied by men.
One significant yet lesser-known piece from this period is an important oil sketch depicting a Land Army Girl Ploghing, which has remained in a private collection for decades and was previously unseen by the public. This sketch captures the essence of the Women’s Land Army, which played a crucial role in maintaining agricultural production during the war. Through her expressive brushwork and keen attention to detail, Knight highlighted the physical labor and strength of these women, emphasizing their vital role in the wartime economy.
She had clear opinions on how land girls should be presented in order to promote their work most effectively. In a letter about the commission she wrote: ‘That there should be one girl only with the plough is important, for it seems that farmers will not engage girls as a rule for that work as it is considered too expensive because they say it takes 2 girls to work in place of one man, but there are girls such as this one who can manage a plough on her own, and she cuts as straight furrow as any man’
In 1939 The War artists’ Advisory Committee asked the artist to produce a poster showing the work of The Women’s Land Army. The National Archives hold a copy of this poster. Arising from the sketches produced for the poster, this Study oil painting and the final version titled January 1940 emerged. January 1940 was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1940 No.268 and included in the RA Illustrated for the year, p.37. Such works were made in the period referred to as the Phoney War, or Sitzkrieg, at the beginning of World War 2, on a farm near Colwall Herefordshire, not far from Malvern and close to the Malvern Hills. “ That winter I spent many weeks working on a painting in a cherry orchard. Between the rows of icy stripped trees, the frozen ploughed red clay soil was partially laden with snow, and the farmer, from whom I hired two horses and a plough to pose as models, built up six stooks of straw to protect me from the bitter cold………..My main difficulty was that the horses had to be covered with sacks, only exposing a little bit of themselves at a time. Magic of a Line p274 -277.
Another notable work, “Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring” (1943), similarly celebrates women’s wartime labor, focusing on a young woman skilled in munitions work. Knight’s ability to blend realism with a sense of grandeur made her one of the most compelling war artists of her time.
Her wartime art, including this rare Land Army sketch, provides a powerful and enduring tribute to the unsung heroes of World War II.
Laura Knight (maiden name Johnson) was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, the daughter of Charles and Charlotte Johnson. Her father died not long after her birth, and Laura Knight grew up in a family that struggled with financial problems.
In 1899 she was sent to France with the intention that she would eventually study art at a Parisian atelier. However, events would prevent this course of study.
Instead, after a short time in French schools, Laura Johnson returned to England. There, at the age of 13 she entered the Nottingham School of Art, one of the youngest students ever to join the school.
Whilst at school, she met one of the most promising students, Harold Knight, aged 17. Laura Johnson determined that the best method of learning was to copy Harold’s technique. They soon became friends, and in 1903 Laura Johnson married Harold Knight (1874-1961).
In 1907 the Knights moved to the artists’ colony in Newlyn, Cornwall, alongside Lamorna Birch, Alfred Munnings and Aleister Crowley, where she painted in an Impressionist style. The Beach (1908), widely admired both by other artists and the public, is an example of this style. Another interesting work is The Green Feather, which was painted in one day. In 1913 she made a painting that was a first for a woman artist, Self Portrait with Nude, showing Laura Knight with a nude model (fellow artist Ella Naper was the model).
After World War I, the Knights moved to London where Laura Knight met some of the most famous ballet dancers of the day, such as Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes with Lydia Lopokova and Enrico Cecchetti, and Anna Pavlova. Her most famous work dates from this period.
While she was a well-educated and by no means, racist woman, Laura Knight, using a term common at the time, did make what today would be considered a racist remark after she had seen an African-American for the first time. It came after a recent visit to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where she had accompanied her husband. “The babies of American darkies,” she declared, “Are among the most beautiful things in the world. In fact, to the artist there is a whole world of beauty which ought to be explored in negro life in America.” [New York Times, 3 November 1927, Page 23, Column 5.]
In 1928 the circus became her inspiration.
In 1929 that she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 1936 she became the first woman elected to the Royal Academy.
In the 1930s, she began to paint the world of horse racing and Gypsies.
After World War II, she was the official war artist at the Nuremberg Trials. The result was The Dock, Nuremberg (1946). She continued to paint even after her husband’s death in 1961. She produced over 250 works in her lifetime as well as two autobiographies, Oil Paint and Grease Paint (1936) and The Magic of a Line (1965).
