Foot of the Duke of York’s Steps, Noon 2 June 1953

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 100 Parliament Street

‘It rained, but this didn’t stop us having our street parties,’ sums up the general mood on Tuesday 2 June 1953, when 8,000 guests were invited to Westminster Abbey (each squeezed into 18 inches of seating) to witness the Coronation of Elizabeth II, while three million people lined the procession route. As part of the celebrations, over 100 works of art were commissioned or purchased by the Government Art Collection's predecessor, the Ministry of Works from early 1953 to 1954 – many of which are by well-known British artists. Among these was Dame Laura Knight whose drawing shows a small group huddled together in blankets on the pavement in anticipation of getting a good view of the procession. Knight was created a dame in 1929; she was renowned particularly for her landscape and figure subjects, especially of scenes from the ballet, circus, music hall and theatre.

Laura Knight was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire and grew up in Nottingham, where she was encouraged by her mother to draw and paint. Aged 13, she attended Nottingham School of Art where she later met her future husband, the painter Harold Knight. She was drawn to the outdoor life and artistic colonies of Staithes in Yorkshire and, notably, Newlyn in Cornwall, where she became an integral figure of the artistic colony, the Newlyn School, between 1907 and 1918. After the First World War, Knight returned to London where she exhibited work frequently. In 1928 she became a member of the Royal Academy and in the following year she was made a Dame of the British Empire.

Places

England, London, The Mall

Subjects

paper (as Subject), rest/sleep, topography, genre, man, woman, crowd, crown, coronation, monument, litter, steps

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), chalk, chalk drawing, wash drawing, wash

Artist

Dame Laura Knight (1877 - 1970)

Title

Foot of the Duke of York’s Steps, Noon 2 June 1953

Date

2 June 1953

Medium

Chalk and wash on paper

Dimensions

height: 38.00 cm, width: 34.00 cm

Acquisition

Commissioned from the artist, April 1953

Inscription

BL: Laura Knight

GAC number

2447