Background
Winifred Margaret Knights was born in Streatham, London, in 1899, to liberal, middle-class parents who were deeply encouraging of their daughter’s talents as a painter and draughtswoman.
From 1912, Knights attended James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich where she showed an early artistic talent.
She enrolled at the Slade in 1915, where she quickly flourished. She returned to the Slade in 1918 much strengthened to complete her studies, before heading off to Rome in October of 1920. The year was 1920 when she had just graduated from the Slade School of Art.
Winifred Margaret Knights was born in Streatham, London, in 1899, to liberal, middle-class parents who were deeply encouraging of their daughter’s talents as a painter and draughtswoman.
From 1912, Knights attended James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich where she showed an early artistic talent. She enrolled at the Slade in 1915, where she quickly flourished. She returned to the Slade in 1918 much strengthened to complete her studies, before heading off to Rome in October of 1920. The year was 1920 when she had just graduated from the Slade School of Art.
In 1917, Winifred suffered a bout of anxiety brought on by the presence of ominous zeppelins over Streatham and retreated to her cousins’ farm in Worcestershire where she cultivated the love of nature and simple, outdoor living that would become so distinct within her work. This was further propagated by her beloved Aunt Millicent, a vocal women’s rights campaigner, whose views also influenced Knights’ ongoing exploration of the conflict between female self-empowerment and subjugation through art.
From this point onwards, Knights styled herself after Millicent in loose bohemian dress, crafted from hand-spun and woven cloth, and wore her dark, center-parted hair pulled back away from her striking face in a manner reminiscent of a Modigliani muse.
The purpose of the scholarship she undertook was for artists to hone their decorative painting skills, learning the art of large-scale wall decoration from the frescoes of the quattrocento masters, whom Knights revered. The artist’s painstakingly precise eye for detail and astonishing understanding of color, form, and composition lent themselves perfectly to the task, as evidenced in the masterpiece of her Rome period, “The Marriage at Cana” (1923) and accompanying preparatory sketches – the pale pink watermelons are particularly sumptuous.
As with the majority of her work, the painting sees Knights’ borrowing from the naturalistic style of Renaissance artists such as Piero della Francesca, but, imbuing the work with a distinct sense of modernity, as well as including autobiographical elements (three self-portraits, as well as portraits of her then-fiancé Arnold Mason and soon-to-be husband Thomas Monnington, are among the banquet’s seated guests). Indeed, Jesus’ transformation of bread into wine, obscured though it is by a figure in the painting, may well be a metaphor for the changes afoot in Knights’ personal life.
“Edge of Abruzzi” (1924 - 1930), another beautiful work in washed-out pastel tones, begun just after her return from Rome in 1924, depicts a trip she took with Monnington to Abruzzo and shows the pair floating on a lake surrounded by rolling hills – Knights’ idea of rural bliss.
Knights continued to enjoy a brief period of success upon her return to Britain, securing a number of notable commissions, including the breathtaking “Santissima Trinita” (1924 - 1930), a celebration of the peasant women Knights had encountered during summers spent in the Italian countryside and a musing on female recuperation. But a combination of factors including an innate sense of perfectionism, cultivated by her pernickety Slade tutor Henry Tonks, which made it difficult for her to finish works; a number of commission snubs; the devastating birth of a stillborn boy and an ongoing sense of anxiety even after the birth of a healthy son in 1934, eventually gave way to Knights abandoning her trade altogether.
In 1946, her marriage fell apart and the following year she passed away, this week marking the 70th anniversary of her death. Happily, thanks in no small part to Llewellyn’s exhibition and book, this milestone is heralded by a resurgence of interest in the outstandingly talented artist’s work, and, to quote the book’s foreword, her long overdue “establishment as one of the most original artists of the first half of the 20th century.”
Winifred Knights adhered to the artistic traditions of Naïve Art (Primitivism).
In 1929 Knights was elected to the New English Art Club, but never exhibited with them.
Quotes from others about the person
Knights consistently rewrote and reinterpreted fairy tale and legend, biblical narrative and pagan mythology to create visual distillations of her own lived experiences.
Although Knights’ scholarship came to an end in 1923, she continued to live and work at the BSR during 1924 – 1925, where she formed a relationship with fellow Rome scholar Thomas Monnington. Knights and Monnington were married in Rome on April 23, 1924, and while Mrs. Monnington was present, Knights wed without the full support of her family.