Artwork copyright Gwen Knight. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Fish, 1987

Gwen Knight
(American, born 1913, died 2005)

Location: Seahurst Elementary, Burien

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Fish is an oil painting by artist Gwen Knight, created to explore color and transparency using layers of paint and abstracted shapes. Describing her process, Knight notes "oil paint is a very manipulable medium; the image grows and changes until finally becoming acceptable. I paint over, rub out, blot, glaze, and hope for a good painting."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Highline School District.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Artist Gwen Knight (1913-2005) explored personal identity and emotional narratives in her expressive, figurative paintings and prints.

Gwen Knight grew up in Barbados, Missouri, and Harlem, NY. She had an interest in all the arts and immersed herself in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. She studied art at Howard University in Washington, D.C. until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Back in Harlem, she studied painting and sculpture, and she joined the Works Progress Administration (WPA) mural project. She went on to be an influential teacher in institutions across America. In 1971, Knight and her husband, artist Jacob Lawrence, moved to Seattle for his teaching position at the University of Washington. They had a life-long partnership of critical guidance and support. Knight’s first solo exhibition was at Seattle Art Museum in 1976. Tacoma Art Museum exhibited a retrospective of her work, "Never Late for Heaven: The Art of Gwen Knight", in 2003.