Bibliography – Harold Knight
Harold Knight RA – Famed as a portrait painter
1874 27th November, Born 8 Belgrove Square, Nottingham, son of William Knight architect.
1881 Attended Nottingham Boys High School, Forest Road, Nottingham.
1888 Enrols at Nottingham School of Art aged 14 (School Reg. No. 3597)
1895 Won British Institute travelling Scholarship.
1895 Left Nottingham School of Art.
1896 First varnishing ticket from The Royal Academy – When the cat’s away.
1896 Attended Paris atelier, Academie Julien, studying under Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant.
1896 Brother Edgar emigrates to USA.
1897 Returns from Paris in the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee OPGP p.69
1897 First visit to Staithes art colony.
1898 On settling in Staithes both he and Laura Johnson, later his wife became the only permanently settled artists in the artist colony in their stay until 1907.
1903 Elected member Newlyn Society of Artists.
1903 Marries Laura Johnson, West Leake, Nottinghamshire.
1904/1905 and 1906 the Knights visit the art colony at Laren in Holland. Harold was considerably influenced by Vermeer and Pietee de Hooch and to a certain extent by Rembrandt and Hals.
1906 Elected member Royal Institute of Oil Painters.
1906 The Knights first London exhibition held at Leicester Galleries Dutch life and Landscape.
1907 November, the Knights leave Staithes and move to Cornwall.
1914 Exhibited at the Paris Salon – Un Bohemian.
1914/18 Conscientious objector. In 1916, aged 43 he received his call up papers and attended several review meetings until finally in the latter year of the war he was finally forced to do manual labour on farms in North Cornwall.
1919 The Knights leave Cornwall to then permanently live in London.
1923 PG Konody invites the Knights to join his family for a holiday on the Italian side of the Tyrol, at Madonna di Campillio.
1923/4 The Knights moved into No. 9 Langford Place ( later re-numbered to No 16).
1925 Silver medal at the Paris Salon – Ethel Bartlett.
1925 August, the Knights revisit Holland then go to Berlin, Dresden. Prague and then stayed for awhile at Prachovski Skály, much liked by Czech artists.
1926 September, Harold leaves for commissions in Baltimore USA. Laura joins him for her second visit to USA at the end of the year and both return at the end of April of the following year.
1928 Elected Associate of the Royal Academy.
1929 Started attending the Malvern Festivals as a guest of their friend Sir Barry Jackson and attended each year until he stopped producing the festivals in 1937.
1933 The Knights make this their last summer vacation in Cornwall spending part of the summer in Mousehole
1936 – 1946 President Nottingham Society of Artists.
1937 Became Royal Academician.
1937 The Knights purchase their rented home at 16 Langford Place, St Johns Wood.
1939 Settled initially at the British Camp Hotel at the onset of WWll , then moved onto the relatively nearby Park Hotel, Colwall, Herefordshire. After the War the Knights spent most of their summers at this hotel and in the final two or three years nearly most of the year at this hotel.
Throughout his life from c 1900 Harold is often poorly, suffering badly from mouth and chest infections and later in life from arthritis. Many of Laura Knights letters refer to Harold being ill and his having to stay in bed.
1961 3rd October, Died at the Park Hotel, Colwall Herefordshire.