Louis Aston Knight
Louis Aston Knight was a French American Romantic landscape artist who lived from 1873 to 1948. He is most known for his landscapes of the French countryside.
Knight was born in Paris, France to an American expatriate artist, Daniel Ridgeway Knight. His first training was provided by his father, before taking formal lessons from Jules Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury, both French Romantic painters.
Knight first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1894 at just 21 years old. That began the start of a very lucrative and successful art career. He befriended Claude Monet and often visited him and his famous gardens at Giverny, France. Inspired by Monet, Knight cultivated his own gardens to use for his art. The Impressionists had a strong influence on his work, as seen in his loose brushstrokes. After forming a pact of sorts with his father, Knight never painted figures in his works. He is remembered for his ability to paint “the trick of running water”. He painted en-plein air as he preferred working under natural light.
Knight’s most famous pieces are of the landscapes around his home in Beaumont-le-Roger, a small settlement in Normandy in northern France. He bought his brick and stone cottage here in 1919. Knight used the brook and garden at his house as the subject for many of his paintings. After becoming well-known in Europe, Knight traveled to the US and became quite respected there, exhibiting in New York. In fact, President Harding bought a Knight painting in 1922, titled “The Afterglow,” to decorate the White House. Knight was promoted as an Officer of the Légion d’honneur for France in 1927.
After the fall of France to the Germans in 1940, Knight and his wife moved to New York City. He would remain there for the rest of his life. In 1944, Knight’s house in Beaumont-le-Roger, France was unfortunately bombed by the US while trying to cut off a German retreat. This news shattered Knight who suffered a stroke from which he never really recovered. Louis Aston Knight died in 1948 at 74 years old.
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