Esmond Knight (1906 – 1987)

A Norfolk Barn

Oil on board – heavily painted- impasto.  Impressionist style.  Set in original frame – gold coloured wood with hessian insert borders

Signed- label on reverse both typed and signed – typical of Esmond Knight paintings.

Size:  painting 25 x 18 cm.  With Original artist frame – 37 x 30 cm.

Esmond Knight (1906 – 1987) began his working life as an actor, appearing in some of the finest films made in the UK, including Henry V, The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, Hamlet,  Richard III,  Peeping Tom, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,  Ann of The Thousand Days. In an acting career that spanned 60 years he also appeared regularly on stage in London's West End theatres and in television productions. Remarkably,  Esmond Knight was virtually blind. He had been injured in 1941 whilst on active service onboard HMS Prince of Wales, struck by a shell from the German battleship Bismarck. Totally blind for two years, he later regained limited sight in his right eye, just enough to resume his career.

While his first love was theatre, his second was painting, which he began in 1948.  There were artists on both sides of his family, most notably John Buxton Knight (1843 – 1908) whose work hangs in the Tate.  

Bearing in mind his limited sight, he was remarkably prolific and regularly exhibited works, notably at the Chelsea Arts Club.  He was also gave a number of his paintings as gifts to friends and fellow actors such as Laurence Olivier.  Unlike most artists, Esmond was unable to make preparatory sketches and relied entirely on his visual memory for his subjects. When painting a landscape he always started with the sky, deciding how high up on the canvas or board the eye line was going to be and using memory to define how light changes as distance increases. Mixing colours in oil created particular problems.  On his palette colours were laid out in a suitably naval order - red (port) to the left and green (starboard) to the right, with other colours in between and black in the middle. 

In May 1973 Esmond had an exhibition of his paintings at the New Town Gallery in Uckfield, East Sussex, which had recently been taken over by Roland Hardless, an admirer of both Esmond's work and Esmond as a person. This was the first exhibition in the new gallery and about seventy paintings were hung.  After three weeks only a few were left – a financial success. 

Condition: both painting and frame are in good condition for age.  Some slight scratches to frame – see photographs.