Sold at Auction: Ridgway Knight

(b Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1839; d Paris, France, 1924) American painter. Knight studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he was a classmate of Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins. He studied under Gleyre at the L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After serving the Union Army during the Civil War, Knight earned enough money and moved back to Paris in 1872. He befriended the poet Wordsworth, as well as artists, including Renoir and Millet. As oppose to Millet’s paintings of the harsh peasant life, Knight was inspired to focus on the rural class in their happier moments. During 1890s Knight moved to Rolleboise. The residence had a beautiful garden overlooking the Seine River and Knight used it as the background for many his paintings. Like the naturalist French artists during this period, Knight’s dedication to the practice of outdoor painting became the foundation of Rolleboise School; he even built a glass enclosed studio so he can paint comfortably indoor while capturing the color nuance fully in its natural surrounding. He received the gold Medal of Honor from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1893, and he was awarded the silver medal and Cross of the Legion of Honor in Paris, 1889. His son, Louis Aston Knight, is also a famous landscape painter. (Credit: Christie’s, New York, 19th Century European Art including Barbizon, Realist, and French Landscape Paintings, April 22, 2004, Lot 139).