Gwendolyn Clarine Knight he preferred to create figurative compositions rather than the abstract expressionist paintings they adopted other artists of his generation.
His vibrant paintings, primarily portraits and images of dancing figures, express his personal response to life's experiences and reveal an abiding interest in his heritage of Africa Western.
His experimentation with improvisation and movement is best captured in his "rapid, lyrical sketches rendered as etchings and mono-engravings" which he created late in his career.
Girl (Self-portrait), 2005. The art of Gwen Knight. Source: Obelisk Art History
Born in Bridgetown, Barbados, Knight was seven years old when she moved with family friends to St.Louis, Missouri, after the unexpected death of his father. However, he spent most of his youth in Harlem.
An avid reader and enthusiast of dance, theater and opera, Knight immersed herself in the Harlem Renaissance during his adolescence. He briefly attended Howard University in Washington, DC, where he studied with Lois Mailou Jones y James Lesesne Wells.
The financial difficulties caused by the Great Depression Knight was forced to leave the university after his sophomore year and return to Harlem. There he studied painting and sculpture with Augusta Savage, and thanks to Savage's recommendation, he joined the mural project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Savage also introduced the young artist to writers and activists in the Harlem Renaissance, included Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, Charles Alston and Alain Locke.
As part of his WPA duties, Knight helped Alston with a mural for the children's ward at the Hospital Harlem. It was in Alston's studio that Knight met fellow artist Jacob Lawrence, whom he married in 1941.
Beyond their marital union, Knight and Lawrence enjoyed a collaborative relationship that drew artistic inspiration. Although the work of both painters incorporated the figurative image, Knight's method was more spontaneous and his subject matter more personal. While Lawrence created narrative paintings highlighting African-American history and the black experience, Knight painted oil portraits of friends and poetic studies of dancers, as well as landscapes in watercolor and gouache.
The paintings of both have been seen by some critics as complementary pieces to those created by Lawrence. “It wasn't necessary for me to be acclaimed,” Knight said in a 1988 interview. “I just knew I wanted to do it.
So I did it whenever I could."
Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Knight became something of an itinerant artist, accompanying her husband in his search for new opportunities. Shortly after their wedding, the couple moved to New Orleans for a brief period while Lawrence completed work for a grant. Knight's time in the South had a strong impact on his art, as it was there that she learned to love and use the sensuality in her that reminded him of Barbados.
Knight spent the summer of 1946 spent in Black mountain collegeNear Asheville, North Carolina, and for the following decade, found its place in New York studying dance with members of the company of Martha Graham.
In 1964, she and Lawrence traveled to Nigeria, a last sojourn that no doubt piqued Knight's curiosity regarding his African roots. Finally, in 1971, Lawrence was offered a teaching position at the University of California School of Art. Washington, and the couple settled in Seattle. Five years later, the Museum of Art of Seattle hosted Knight's first solo exhibition.
After her, several others arrived in New York, Georgia, Oregon, and Washington, DC. At the same time, institutions such as Hampton University, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Museum of Modern Art began collecting his work, and he carved out his status as a pictorial legend of the U.S.
In 2000, Lawrence and Knight established a charitable foundation that supports struggling artists as well as children's programs. Knight stopped creating art after the death of her husband in 2000, and instead she diverted her energy toward advancing the foundation's philanthropic efforts.
Gwendolyn passed away on February 18, 2005, Seattle, Washington, United States.