Study for 'Flying A Kite'

This study for Flying A Kite was painted two years after Laura Knight and her husband, Harold Knight, relocated from Staithes to Cornwall in 1907. The study relates to the finished work of the same title, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1910 and is now in the South African National Gallery, Cape Town.

In both style and subject matter the work demonstrates the shift in Knight’s artistic output, from the darker, heavier landscapes of North Yorkshire to the brilliant Cornish light which imbued her work for most of the subsequent decade. In this work, we see a group of children flying a kite, behind Beer House on the rolling hills of Newlyn, Cornwall. Knight successfully combines landscape and figures, infusing them with a sense of energy and movement.

This study provides an important insight into Laura Knight’s artistic process. Through the use of quick brushstrokes and the employment of a sprezzatura technique, the viewer gets a sense that the work was completed, at least partially, en plein air.

The painting is to be included in the catalogue raisonné of Dame Laura Knight currently being compiled by R John Croft FCA, the great-nephew of the artist.