Artist Gwendolyn Knight (1913-2005) came to Black Mountain College in 1946 with her husband Jacob Lawrence. Not officially a teacher, she spent lots of time engaging with students, even teaching informal dance lessons. In the 50s she would study dance in New York with Martha Graham’s company.

An expressionist painter with a strong interest in people, her vibrant paintings are often portraits and images of dancing figures. Knight painted throughout her life, but only started exhibiting in 1970s.

Born in Barbados, she was only 7 when she moved to Missouri, following her father’s death. She grew up in Harlem, immersing herself in the Harlem Renaissance as a teenager. At Howard University she studied with with painter Loïs Mailou Jones and printmaker James Lesesne Wells. Financial hardship forced her back to Harlem, where she studied painting and sculpture with August Savage, a prominent artist, educator and advocate for African Americans in the arts. Savage recommended she join the Works Progress Administration Mural Project, where Knight assisted painter Charles Alston with a mural for the children’s ward at Harlem Hospital. She me Lawrence in Alston’s studio; they married in 1941.

Her paintings have often been regarded as ‘companion pieces’ to Lawrence’s, when in fact they maintained distinct artistic styles despite a strong intellectual bond. Friends would often pose for Knight, and she would take inspiration from the environments she lived in. Asked once whether Josef Albers had liked her paintings, Knight responded, laughing: “Oh no! I’m a figurative painter you see, and his wife showed him one of my paintings and said ‘isn’t this a good painting?’ and he was very huffy about it and said ‘no!’” Josef’s wife Anni on the other hand was very supportive. Knight received many honours including the National Honor Award presented by the Women’s Caucus for Art and the Pioneer Award from the Artist’s Salute to Black History Month in Los Angeles. In 2000, Lawrence and Knight established a foundation to support struggling artists as well as children’s programmes. After her husband’s death, she stopped making art, to focus on the foundation’s philanthropic efforts.

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Banner image: Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence at Black Mountain College, summer 1946. Photograph by Bacia Stepner. Courtesy Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina.

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