Biographies

Harold Knight (1874 – 1961) He was born in Nottingham, the son of an architect and amateur artist. He studied at Nottingham School of Art under William Foster, where he met Laura Johnson, his future wife. Harold Knight’s reputation grew as a successful portrait painter and he first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1896. He is largely remembered as an accomplished but unexciting painter, while Laura (later Dame Laura) was flamboyant in both her life and art, and achieved greater public renown. After spending time in Paris and at Staithes, a little fishing village on the Yorkshire coast, Harold and Laura moved to Newlyn, in Cornwall, in 1907. They mainly lived and worked in Lamorna, becoming key figures in the Lamorna group, and they remained in Cornwall until 1918. During World War I, he was a conscientious objector.

Portrait of Ellie M. Lawler
— Knight, Harold