Dame Laura Knight, The Fairgrounds, Penzance, (c.1916), Source: Sotheby’s

Who Was Dame Laura Knight?

Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) was an English artist who worked in oils, watercolours, etching, engraving and drypoint. Knight was a painter in the figurative, realist tradition who embraced English Impressionism. As a teenager, she initially started painting to help support her financially struggling family in her home town of Nottingham, England.

The Fairground

Dating back to the fourteenth century, a fair was regularly held in Penzance in Cornwall, England. Common sights included merry-go-rounds, acrobats, clowns, peddlars, beer-sellers, and men performing card tricks.

Dame Laura Knight, The Fairgrounds, Penzance, (c.1916), Source:Sotheby’s(detail)

According to Sotheby’s

Travelling fairgrounds, carnivals, circuses and side shows, often operated by gypsies, were, of course, a common feature of English towns and villages at the turn of the twentieth century. Many, such as that at Penzance, had venerable histories.

Dame Laura Knight…