Artist Winifred Knights: Design for Wall Decoration, c.1918

Artist Winifred Knights (1899-1947): Design for Wall Decoration, c.1918

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 Privately held

Winifred Knights (1899-1947):
Design for Wall Decoration, c.1918
Framed (ref: 451)

Signed on the reverse, and titled (on a War Service Economy Label)

Oil on canvas (Artist's Colorman)


24 x 30 in. (61 x 76.2 cm)

See all works by Winifred Knights oil farms/domestic animals work 1.PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST 49 pictures Knights at Dulwich Rediscovering Women Artist WOMEN



Provenance: The Artist's Estate; private collection.

Exhibited: London, The Fine Art Society, Winifred Knights, 1995, no. 2a

Literature: Paul Liss, Winifred Knights, The Fine Art Society, 1995, no. 2a, pp. 31 and 48

Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.338.

This oil study is for the earliest of Knights' decorative paintings: Design for Wall Decoration, the Slade Sketch Club Special Figure Subject for January 1918.  The mural itself is unlikely to have been executed - other studies indicate that its intended size was to be 5 X 6 ft (the size of paintings entered for the Scholarship to Rome). The picture is inspired by the Italian Primitives, as the clarity of form, and the thoughtful arrangement of the figures in space indicate. The studies for the composition were probably executed while staying at Lineholt Farm in Worcestershire, between October 1917 and October 1918.




Sheet of studies for Design for Wall Decoration.


Knights with her two Aunts at Lineholt