Observations placeholder
Knight, Dame Laura – Gypsies – 02
Identifier
024370
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
From Epsom Knight was invited to the Gypsy settlement at Iver, Buckinghamshire. Knight visited the Iver settlement, normally closed to outsiders, every day for several months in the late 1930s; the visits resulted in a series of portraits of great intensity.
Two women, in particular, sat a number of times for Knight, Lilo Smith, the subject of Old Gypsy Women (1938) and Gypsy Splendour (1939), and her daughter-in-law, Beulah. Gypsy Splendour was shown at the Royal Academy in 1939, the year Lilo Smith died.
A description of the experience
Gypsy splendour