St. Olaf College

Jennie Lea Knight

painter painter
United States
1933 - 2007

View objects by this artist.

Jennie Lea Knight was born in Washington, D.C., in 1933. She studied design and music at the King-Smith School of Creative Arts, and then went on to graduate from the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1951, followed by four more years at American University. From 1954 until 1974, she worked as a photographer for the National Institutes of Health; however, by 1964 she had begun to get involved in sculpture. In fact, during the summers of 1964 and ‘65 worked in the bronze foundry at the Penland School, where she cast using the lost wax method, which was followed by a year spent at the Fonderia Battaglia in Milan.
In 1956, she was one of the founders of Studio Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, which was one of the first galleries of its kind in northern Virginia. In 1972, she serves as chief of installation of the American Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, but unfortunately a studio fire the following year destroyed most of her works. Knight’s works have been described as abstract, but she also drew inspiration from natural forms.

Along with her artistic pursuits, Knight lived for many years working on a farm and as a certified wildlife rehabilitator with her partner, Marcia Newell, in Haymarket, Virginia. Before her death, being nearly immobile from both fibromyalgia and cancer, she began to work in miniatures. She died in Manassas in 2007.

Madison Duran ‘20
March 2019

Sources:
“Jennie Lea Knight.” Smithsonian American Art Museum,
www.americanart.si.edu/artist/jennie-lea-knight-2670.
“Jennie Lea Knight Photo Library.” Studio Gallery, Studio Gallery, 7 July 2015,
www.studiogallerydc.com/jlkblog/2015/7/7/42szbegnsw5pn7gckv7plhymiljtvv.
“Jennie Lea Knight.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Jan. 2019,
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennie_Lea_Knight.