IN recent decades, it has been a mark of art-world snobbery to rubbish Dame Laura Knight. The token woman at the top table of British painting for much of the 20th century was too versatile, prolific and popular; too workaday, too vulgar. Now, however—with the first major gallery survey since a Nottingham retrospective of 1970, which opened days after her death—we can see how cleverly she caught the character of her times in lucid paint and how deeply she has seeped into our consciousness.
When we think of a picture of blissful summer on the Cornish coast or of fairs and circuses, boxers and ballet dancers, gypsies, horses, theatres, dressing rooms, courtrooms and, most especially, women at work, we probably have a Knight painting in mind. She was a painter of immense empathy, shifting perspectives in a selfless focus on her varied subjects and forever hiding the titanic effort behind her stellar career. Her famous selfportrait, with face in profile and further obscured by an all-weather hat, celebrates the nude models she was not allowed to see until she could pay for them herself.
Portrait of an artist
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 01, 2021-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Don't rain on Venus's parade
TENNIS has never been sexier—at least, that is what multiple critics of the new film Challengers are saying.
A rural reason to cheer
THERE was something particularly special for country people when one of the prestigious King’s Awards for Voluntary Service was presented last week.
My heart is in the Highlands
A LISTAIR MOFFAT’S many books on Scottish history are distinctive for the way he weaves poetry and literature, language and personal experience into broad-sweeping studies of particular regions or themes. In his latest— and among his most ambitious in scope—he juxtaposes a passage from MacMhaighstir Alasdair’s great sea poem Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill with his own account of filming a replica birlinn (Hebridean galley) as it glides into the Sound of Mull, ‘larch strakes swept up to a high prow’, saffron sail billowing, water sparkling as its oars dip and splash. Familiar from medieval tomb carvings, the birlinn is a potent symbol of the power of the Lords of the Isles.
Put it in print
Three sales furnished with the ever-rarer paper catalogues featured intriguing lots, including a North Carolina map by John Ogilby and a wine glass gibbeting Admiral Byng, the unfortunate scapegoat for the British loss of Minorca
The rake's progress
Good looks, a flair for the theatrical and an excellent marriage made John Astley’s fortune, but also swayed ‘le Titien Anglois’ away from painting into a dissolute life of wine and women, with some collecting on the side
Charter me this
There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored and one of the most exciting ways to see it is from the water, says Emma Love, who rounds up the best boat charters
Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to sow we go
JUNE can be a tricky month for the gardener.
Floreat Etona
The link with the school and horticulture goes back to its royal founder, finds George Plumptre on a visit to the recently restored gardens
All in good time
Two decades in the planning, The Emory, designed by Sir Richard Rogers, is open. Think of it as a sieve that retains the best of contemporary hotel-keeping and lets the empty banality flow away
Come on down, the water's fine
Ratty might have preferred a picnic, but canalside fine dining is proving the key to success for new restaurant openings in east London today, finds Gilly Hopper