Dame Laura Knight, RA, RWS, (British, 1877-1970)

Waiting in the Wings 62 x 53.6 cm. (24 3/8 x 21 1/8 in.)

Waiting in the Wings
signed 'Laura Knight' (lower left)
oil on canvas
62 x 53.6 cm. (24 3/8 x 21 1/8 in.)

Provenance
Private Collection, U.K.

Laura Knight was a true pioneer of 20th Century British art; from coastal scenes and landscapes, portraiture, studies of ballet and the theatre, and even sketches made during the Nuremberg trials, her output was extraordinarily varied and prolific. She was the first female artist to be elected to the Royal Academy and the first woman to be given a full retrospective there in 1965.

Knight was often a trail-blazer in her working practices: one of the first female artists to paint with female nudes, both indoors - in iconic works such as Self Portrait with Nude (1913, National Gallery, London) - and outdoors, in works such as The Bather (sold in these rooms on 26 September 2019, lot 92) where, as Caroline Fox observes, Knight was 'establishing a new precedent. It had previously been unknown for a woman to paint a female nude out of doors'. (Caroline Fox, Dame Laura Knight, Oxford, 1988, p.34).

Knight's interest in the stage started with visits to the ballet in the early 1910s, and a fascination with the circus followed after a visit to Bertram Mills Circus in the early 1920s. As with the present lot, Knight was given access backstage to produce 'behind the scenes' studies, brilliantly capturing a moment of anticipation and calm as the dancers await their cue.