Laura Gascoigne

Honest observer

<strong>Laura Knight at the Theatre</strong><br /> <em>Lowry Galleries, until 6 July</em>

issue 19 April 2008

Laura Knight at the Theatre
Lowry Galleries, until 6 July

Ascot racegoers whose binoculars wandered from the track in 1936 might have spotted something unusual in the car park: a Rolls-Royce with its back door open and an artist working at an easel inside. Odder still, the artist was a woman — Laura Knight — and unlike her friend Munnings she wasn’t painting the horses. Her subjects were the gypsy fortune-tellers who worked the race crowds as alternative tipsters.

In 1936 Dame Laura Knight (1877–1970) was a household name, newly elected as the only woman member of the Royal Academy seven years after being created DBE. Having made her name as a painter of Newlyn beach scenes, Knight had won national popularity with her pictures of the circus and ballet. Unlike Degas, she wasn’t content with anonymous danseuses.

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