Helen KNAPPING
Knapping studied under E Aubrey Hunt in England, and in France and Belgium, and is listed in Benezit as being from Blackheath. Her first exhibition in Cornwall was with the RCPS in 1897, the picture having a St Ives title. In 1905 she took over William Holt Yates TITCOMB's Piazza studio when he left St Ives, purchasing the freehold of the entire block in 1920.
She was an exhibitor in the 1911 Show Day in St Ives, and later in the Show Day of 1924 when she showed several oils, one still life of tulips, a maritime scene entitled St Ives Harbour, and another termed 'a nocturne' - all 'decoratively treated' (St Ives Times).
A member of the Women's International Arts Club, she also designed Christmas cards and illustrated children's magazines. A keen golfer, she divided her time between St Ives and her house in Sloane Street, London. A much respected artist, on her death she bequeathed the Piazza studios to the RBA, in the hope it would remain artist studios.
media
Painter of landscapes and flowers in oils and watercolour
works and access
Works include: St Ives Harbour (1924)
exhibitions
RCPS 1897
St Ives March 1911, March 1912, March 1923, March 1924 (various oils)
Goupil Gallery, London 1920s
SWA
STISA
memberships
STISA 1927-35 (Founder member)
Women's International Art Club
references
St Ives Times 25 Mar 1911, 22 Mar 1912, 23 Mar 1923, 21 Mar 1924
Benezit
Hardie (2009) Artists in Newlyn and West Cornwall (p333)
Johnson & Greutzner (1975) Dictionary of British Artists
Tovey (2003) Creating a Splash;
(2009) St Ives: Social History;
Whybrow (1994) St Ives (1883-1900 list)