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Winifred Knights (1899 - 1947)

Self-Portrait, 1920

Catalogue essay by Blanche Llewellyn

This self-portrait dates to 1920 when Knights became the first woman to win the ‘Prix de Rome’ – a prestigious Scholarship in Decorative Painting awarded by the British School at Rome. This self-portrait is similar to those included in her sketchbook ‘My Book of Studies for the Rome Scholarship’- indicating how Knights sought to resolve specific details to create an intensity of expression and introspection and a visual tension to reinforce the depiction of fear through gesture, prayer and flight – qualities which were transported on her final awarded composition ‘The Deluge’. Among them are numerous portraits studies of the artist’s family and closest friends, individual studies of hands and feet, studies of landscapes and five self-portraits.

Knights had striking features – portraits of her were made by Colin Gill, Arnold Mason, and Tom Monnington, amongst many, and portrait busts by sculptors David Evans, Professor Gerard, and Alfred Hardiman.

H18cm
x W15cm
Pencil on paper
Knights, Winifred

Winifred Knights (1899 - 1947)

Winifred Knights was born in Streatham, London in 1899. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (1915–17, 1918–20 and 1926–27). In 1919 she jointly won the prestigious Slade Summer Composition Competition with A Scene in a Village Street with Mill-Hands Conversing (UCL Art Museum). In 1920, she became the first woman to win the Scholarship in Decorative Painting awarded by the British School at Rome with her painting The Deluge (Tate). She remained in Italy until December 1925, marrying fellow Rome Scholar Thomas Monnington (1902–1976) in April 1924. On her return to England, Knights received a commission to paint an altarpiece for the Milner Memorial Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral. A major commission for the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, on which she had been working for five years, remained unconcluded at her early death, aged 47. Throughout her life, Winifred Knights produced work through which she explored women’s autonomy. Presenting herself as the central protagonist, and selecting models from her inner circle, she rewrote and reinterpreted fairy tale and legend, biblical narrative and pagan mythology. She was the subject of a major retrospective at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2016, curated by Sacha Llewellyn.

Artworks by the same artist