The MODERN WOMEN ARTISTS collection is a series published by Eiderdown Books to outline an alternative history of art.
The books reveal the story of important female artists whose art might otherwise be overlooked, overshadowed or forgotten. Working across a range of disciplines and artistic styles in the first half of the twentieth century, all of the women included in this series were 'modern'.
Read together, these books begin to redress the untold history of modern art.
No 4: LAURA KNIGHT by Alice Strickland
Laura Knight (1877–1970) was an English Realist painter who documented life and culture in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century.
Educated at a time when studying life-drawing was the preserve of male artists, Knight railed against social restrictions of the day and established her own life studio. She was a consummate documentarist and her studies of the ballet as well as her government-commissioned depictions of women’s wartime labour during the First World War are some of the this artist's most enduring works.
The first female artist to be elected a full Royal Academician, and with a career that spanned seven decades, Knight was one of the most important artists of her day. Today her work features in public collections across the UK and around the world, including Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the Imperial War Museums, London.
