Posts in Category: august 4

John Henry Twachtman

On July 5, 2025 - 19th Century, 20th Century, American, august 4

John Henry Twachtman, August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902, was an American painter and printmaker associated with American Impressionism and Tonalism. He studied at the Ohio Mechanics Institute, the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and the Académie Julian in Paris.

Twachtman worked closely with J. Alden Weir and Theodore Robinson, and he was one of The Ten American Painters, the group that separated from the Society of American Artists in 1898. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, where his students included Ernest Lawson and Helen Turner.

His paintings are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and other major US collections.

Laura Knight

On June 21, 2025 - 19th Century, 20th Century, august 4, English

Laura Knight, August 4, 1877 – July 7, 1970, was an English painter and printmaker. She became one of Britain’s most successful artists of the twentieth century, known for portraits, theatrical subjects, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life. In 1936 she became the first woman elected as a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts since its founding in 1768.

Knight studied at the Nottingham School of Art, where she met fellow artist Harold Knight, whom she married in 1903. The couple worked in artists’ colonies at Staithes, Laren in the Netherlands, and Newlyn in Cornwall before settling in London. During both World Wars she received official commissions, producing paintings of military training, industrial workers, and the armed services, including the celebrated wartime painting Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring.

Her work frequently depicted performers, dancers, circus artists, gypsies, and backstage theatrical life, alongside portraits and landscapes. Knight was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1929 and continued exhibiting until late in her career. Her paintings are held in major public collections throughout the United Kingdom and beyond.