.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Going to School was painted at Staithes in Yorkshire shortly after Laura and Harold Knight’s first trip to Laren, Holland in 1905. There is a very close resemblance between the present work and Dressing the Children (fig. 1., 1906, The Ferens Art Gallery, Hull), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1906 and at the Nottingham Castle exhibition in 1970 when the two paintings hung side by side. In each picture a mother is shown tying the apron of her eldest child as she prepares to leave for school. The intimate scene gives an insight into their lives and demonstrates the strong connection between the artist and her sitters.
The models for both paintings, and a number of others at this period, were a family who lived in a cottage at the top of Cawbor Hill. As she had done in Laren Laura made arrangements to work in the cottage, renting it by the week using the mother and children as models. In her autobiography she recalled the family’s poverty and stricken situation. There were four children, Antony, Mary Ann, Anna Margaret, Elizabeth Alice and another on the way and ‘the wages that the father earned in a mine, although he gave every penny to his wife, would not pay for rent, food and clothes for all’ (L. Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint, London, 1936, p. 145).
The family’s circumstances clearly upset Laura and she and Harold decide to lend the family ‘five pounds to go into fish-hawking business; with the money they bought a horse and cart. They did so well in their new venture that they even paid back part of the loan. We said they could keep the rest as a gift’ (op. cit., p. 147). Her close bond with the family, and the children in particular, inspired Laura’s creativity and she later claimed that ‘All the work I did in that cottage was the best I was capable of at the time.’ (loc. cit.).
Laura Knight’s time in Staithes was incredibly formative in her artistic development: 'It was [at Staithes] that I found myself and what I might do. The life and the place were what I yearned for - the freedom, the austerity, the savagery and the wildness. I loved it passionately, overwhelmingly; I loved the cold and the northerly storms when no covering would protect you.’ (op. cit., p. 75).
This painting is no. #0081 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the work of Dame Laura Knight currently being prepared by R. John Croft F.C.A., the artist’s great-nephew. We are grateful for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
The models for both paintings, and a number of others at this period, were a family who lived in a cottage at the top of Cawbor Hill. As she had done in Laren Laura made arrangements to work in the cottage, renting it by the week using the mother and children as models. In her autobiography she recalled the family’s poverty and stricken situation. There were four children, Antony, Mary Ann, Anna Margaret, Elizabeth Alice and another on the way and ‘the wages that the father earned in a mine, although he gave every penny to his wife, would not pay for rent, food and clothes for all’ (L. Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint, London, 1936, p. 145).
The family’s circumstances clearly upset Laura and she and Harold decide to lend the family ‘five pounds to go into fish-hawking business; with the money they bought a horse and cart. They did so well in their new venture that they even paid back part of the loan. We said they could keep the rest as a gift’ (op. cit., p. 147). Her close bond with the family, and the children in particular, inspired Laura’s creativity and she later claimed that ‘All the work I did in that cottage was the best I was capable of at the time.’ (loc. cit.).
Laura Knight’s time in Staithes was incredibly formative in her artistic development: 'It was [at Staithes] that I found myself and what I might do. The life and the place were what I yearned for - the freedom, the austerity, the savagery and the wildness. I loved it passionately, overwhelmingly; I loved the cold and the northerly storms when no covering would protect you.’ (op. cit., p. 75).
This painting is no. #0081 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the work of Dame Laura Knight currently being prepared by R. John Croft F.C.A., the artist’s great-nephew. We are grateful for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.