The main aim of our society is to raise public awareness and appreciation of Laura Knight’s life and work. The Society’s Archive is one of the chief ways of implementing this aim. It was founded at the same time as the Society, in 2008.
The Archive brings together a wide spectrum of material that sheds light, directly or indirectly, on Laura Knight’s character and achievements. Original works, books, letters, recordings, photographs – the range has been built up chiefly by donations from private individuals to whom the Society is deeply grateful. The Society has also used its own funds from time to time to acquire objects of particular significance, and to fill in gaps in the collection.
It was initially thought to first decide just what an archive should be and how to best make it appropriate to one of the main aims of our society: ‘To promote awareness of her (Laura Knight’s) work’. It was therefore concluded:
The archive should contain material that would add historical value towards the life and time of Laura Knight, both as a person and her canon of work produced.
That we the society, must encourage and facilitate secure access to the archive both by society members and members of the public.
Consequently, the first job was to categorize material as either ‘true archive’ or ‘presentational’. (The latter being mostly pictures and photographs regularly used for our display boards at society events). This done all the archive material was identified, recorded and assigned to individual file-boxes. It is these records that have been uploaded onto this website accessed via the above drop down menu or here to provide an accessible resource.
Suggestions for improving the inventory, and for enlarging and improving the Archive itself, are always welcome.
It is the society’s intention to allow full access to the archive both by members and the general public. Unfortunately, due to the current coronavirus outbreak this has been postponed. Further details of access and availability will be made available when appropriate.
Should you require further information on the current status then please contact our Archivist: Virginia Seddon via:
virginia.seddon@gmail.com
Or via the contact form.