Dame Laura Knight, R.A., R.W.S.

Pyms Gallery, London;
Private collection

London, Royal Watercolour Society, Summer Exhibition, 1911, no.187;
Ghent, International Exhibition, 1913

Caroline Fox, Dame Laura Knight, 1988, pl. 31;

To be included in R. John Croft's forthcoming catalogue raisonne of Knight's work

STRUCTURE The linen is in good condition. PAINT SURFACE The paint surface is in excellent original condition; there are traces of light surface dirt and the work may benefit from a light clean. FRAME Under glass and held in a fine plaster gilt frame in good condition.
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'Laura was at her most restrained in her use of watercolour and gouache and Wind and Sun is one of the most beautiful of all. Two girls sitting on a cliff-edge against a background of sea and the most exquisitely painted cloudy sky.' (Caroline Fox, Dame Laura Knight, 1988, pp. 37-40)

Laura and Harold Knight moved from Staithes to Cornwall in 1907 and it was during the next ten years when they lived on the south coast that Laura's work matured from the somber interiors painted in Yorkshire to essays in brilliant sunlight. Laura described the years in Cornwall as 'the time the very bright of life beamed on us. We had never known the joys of youth before. We danced, played games and lived half the night as well as working hard all day.' (ibid Fox, p.25). The years that the Knights had spent in Staithes and in Holland had been ones of economic hardship and the success they began to enjoy in Cornwall and the camaraderie of the Newlyn colony of artists invigorated both of them. Laura started to plan ambitious projects, painted on a large scale and taking their subject from the natural beauty of the Newlyn coast. Around 1911 she began to paint a large picture of two nude girls by the sea, a six-foot canvas which would be titled Daughters of the Sun. She found difficulty persuading the local girls to pose naked for her, even as a female artist. However Newlyn was within a mile of the railway station in Penzance and Laura called for three professional models to be sent to her from London. One of these models, an ex-Tiller-Girl named Dolly Snell (later Mrs Edgar Knight, she married Harold's brother) was particularly favoured by Laura who envied her ability to be able to kick the back of her own head. Laura made the most of the three models and on the first day of their stay she took them to the beach and began to make studies of them in different poses, dressing and undressing 'sat on the rocks with their breasts uncovered and little enough on below the hips.' (Janet Dunbar, Laura Knight, 1975, p.84). Painting naked women in the confines of the artist's studio or at Stanhope-Forbes' academy was accepted as being necessary for an artist but painting them outdoors for all to see was a quite different matter. Laura was not concerned by local disapproval and industriously worked away on her studies of the models, amassing many dozens of figure drawings before the girls returned to London. It was her intention to produce as many studies as possible for Daughters of the Sun but also for other paintings she would paint in the future. From these drawings she worked over the next few years on a series of paintings of clothed and unclothed female figures posed on the cliffs or beaches. 'Female figures, dressed and sitting on the edge of a cliff outlined against the sea, continued to be a popular subject with Laura for many years. These paintings are extremely bright and colourful and reveal her delight in painting the sea in its different moods with shimmering reflections and ripples around the rocks. Her models serve as focal points in these works and as colour contrasts to the rich blues and blue-greens of the sea.' (ibid Fox, p. 34)

Daughters of the Sun was critically acclaimed when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1912 but did not sell and was subsequently exhibited at provincial galleries around the country. It was so badly damaged by its constant journeys around the galleries that Laura eventually decided to cut it into pieces and the separate fragments were sold individually. Wind and Sun was painted in the same year as Daughters of the Sun but unlike the latter painting, the former depicts the models clothed. It is likely that Laura used sketches made of Dolly and the other London models for this large watercolour of two young women resting on a sun-scorched cliff-top beneath an azure summer sky. The two young girls are taking respite from the heat in the shade of an umbrella and the gathering clouds. One has put aside her sun-hat, lain down upon a picnic blanket and laid out her corn-hued hair on the grass to listen to the chatter of her companion who has abandoned her deck-chair, perhaps to confide a romantic secret. Her hair gently blows out behind her in the warm sea-breezes from which the picture takes its title.

Painted from the footpath on Tregurnow Cliff above Lamorna Cove, Wind and Sun belongs to a series of coastal paintings undertaken by Laura that all share a high viewpoint, a sunny palette and a distinct air of joie-de-vivre. Laura had stumbled upon not only a pristine, unspoilt landscape but a seductively relaxed way of life that was to have a profound impact on her work. As their contemporary Norman Garstin observed of Laura and Harold's work, '...with their advent, there came over their work an utter change in both their outlook and method: they at once plunged into a riot of brilliant sunshine of opulent colour and sensuous gaiety' (ibid Fox, p.26).

The unique quality of the glowing West Cornwall light, so different from that in Yorkshire, prompted Laura to take up the mantle of the Newlyn School with enthusiasm, always working out of doors (while Harold concentrated on interiors), and using her studio only to add her finishing touches. The effect of the bright sunlight refracting from the ocean is one that Laura embraced repeatedly. Here, in Wind and Sun she translates her vision into vigorous carefree brushstrokes of flamboyant colour that spread unchecked across the bulk of this unusually large canvas like an ode to mid-summer. With an effective variation in the handling, she succeeds in contrasting the brilliant translucence of the shimmering sea with the far broader flatter treatment of the cloudy sky. This is all the more remarkable as the picture is not painted in the more adaptable medium of oil, but in watercolour and gouache which allows for no mistakes or alterations to be concealed. By choosing to use watercolour to cover a large expanse of fine linen Laura set herself a difficult task, and was entirely successful. Although it may have proved easier to work in oil, the effect of the subtler tones of watercolour gives the painting an almost oriental delicacy.

As the eye roams there are details of topographical interest to focus and guide the eye: the protruding rocks at the headland and the boulders around Lamorna Cove. Meanwhile in the foreground human activity brings the scene alive and instills in the viewer the sense of a fleeting moment. Laura had clearly enjoyed painting this plein air picture despite the hazards of carrying it up the precarious footpath that leads from the cove to the cliff-top. Unfortunately the outbreak of war only a few years later would put an end to Laura's paintings of coastal scenes as it was made illegal to paint the shoreline for fear that the paintings might fall into enemy hand and be used for reconnaissance purposes. Wind and Sun is undoubtedly one of the finest paintings from this period in Laura's career when she delighted in the splendour of Cornwall and the quality of light that proved so influential to the colony of artists that made their home in Newlyn in the decades before WWI.