Auction house record for Dame Laura Knight painting


A painting by one of the leading female artists of the 20th century has recently sold for a record £74,000 at a Cotswold auction house.

Dame Laura Knight R.A. (1877-1970) was a leading light in the British Impressionist movement. Knight was a painter in the figurative realist tradition, working in oils, watercolor, and print techniques. She was one of the most successful female British painters in a male-dominated scene paving the way for greater status and recognition for female artists.

A painting entitled 'Hop Picking' by Dame Laura Knight

Born in Derbyshire, she developed her skills and style in Staithes and Cornwall, developing an interest in ballet and circus folk. During the 1930’s she befriended and painted groups of gypsies. In the aftermath of WWII, she was assigned to depict the Nuremberg Trials.

Her accomplished oil work titled Hop Picking was consigned by a Herefordshire-based private client whose family had inherited it and offered it at Cotswold auctioneers Kinghams.

Measuring an imposing 75 by 62cm, it is thought to depict gypsy hop pickers of Worcestershire. A gypsy boy sits in the foreground enticing the eye into his companions/family at work. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1971, the work is believed to date from the late 1930s and appears in the catalogue Raisonne as No.1042.

Laura Knight’s work is in high demand and an estimate of £15,000-20,000 was published in the auction catalogue. After much pre-sale interest, it was predicted the work would exceed expectations. Online, room and phone bidders battled it out with the gavel eventually falling at a total of £74,000 to a UK-based anonymous buyer on the phone.

Kinghams are now sourcing paintings by Laura Knight and other leading artists for their October 3 Fine and Decorative Arts auction.