BIOGRAPHY

Jennie Lea Knight was a local artist with a national reputation.  She was born in 1933 in Washington DC, where she received her art training.  Her studies began at the King-Smith School of Creative Arts.  She studied with Ken Noland at the Institute of Contemporary Art, graduating in 1951.  Then she attended American University, where she studied with Robert Gates, James Caudle, and William Calfee; later becoming an instructor.  She was also an instructor and lecturer at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, the Art League School and George Mason University.  From 1954 to 1974, she was a photographer and illustrator for the National Institutes of Health.  For two summers in 1964 and 1965, she cast bronze using the lost-wax method, at the Penland School of Crafts.  The following summer she spent at the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia in Milan, devoting further study to casting methods. 

In 1956 Jennie Lea Knight, Nancy Lloyd and Vera Knight started Studio Gallery at 814 Prince Street, Alexandria.  It began on the first floor of her parents’ house and was inspired by a desire to show their own work.  Studio Gallery was Virginia’s first professional art gallery.  The three of them did virtually everything: all the curating, construction, scheduling, promotion, and publicity.  The gallery attracted young, emerging and underrepresented artists, including women and minority artists, who found it hard to find places to show.  The gallery also showed high profile, famous artists, both local and international.  In 1963 both her parents passed away and Jennie Lea Knight turned the gallery over to the participating artists; Studio Gallery became a cooperative gallery in 1964.   

She was known for her relationship with nature; worked her farm and cared for an incredible diversity of animals that needed to be rescued.  All this found its way into her work.  Washington Post art critic, Paul Richard says of a show of drawings and sculptures he reviewed at the Philips Collection

"Those drawings change her sculptures.  Seeing them together provides her sculptures with a warmth, a subtlety, a set of evocations of ponds and gentle hills and curving biomorphic forms.  The wood …has been used as directly and as lovingly as a farmer uses land…They look as if they’ve grown"

She was a vice-commissioner for the American Pavilion at the 1972 Venice Biennale.  Her works are in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the National Museum for Women in the Arts, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Gallery of Art.  At a time when the art coming out of Washington DC was especially appreciated, Jennie Lea Knight was recognized as a significant DC artist.  Her works represented the DC area in such shows as Ten Washington Artists in Edmonton Canada, 11 From Washington and Washington Invitational at the Adams Davidson Gallery in New York City, and Women Artists in Museum Collections at the University of Maryland.  The Corcoran Gallery had her in Small Sculpture, New Sculpture, several Area Exhibitions, Three Washington Artists,  Images of the 70's -  9 Washington Artists, and The Washington Show.

After progressively debilitating fibromyalgia and several bouts of cancer hampered her physically, she began carving small, intimate sculptures by hand.  She ended her career working on very small, very powerful pieces. 

Jennie Lea Knight passed away on March 23rd, 2007.  She lived a life forging new ground;  finding  success at a time when there were not many opportunities for women in the art world.  She had a reputation as an eccentric; as an artist who lived her life as she saw fit.  And she left her mark on the arts community in Washington DC.  Studio Gallery is a small part of her legacy and is still carrying on her mission of showing local artists, finding interesting artists to invite into our gallery, and serving the community. 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1957, The Studio Gallery, Alexandria, VA

1960, The Studio Gallery, Alexadria, VA

1961, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

1962, The Studio Gallery, Alexandria, VA

1964, Jefferson Place Gallery, WDC

1965, Emerson Gallery, McLean, VA

1968, Jefferson Place Gallery, WDC

1969, Jefferson Place Gallery, WDC

1972, Jefferson Place Gallery, WDC

1973, The Phillips Gallery, WDC

1974, Catholic Universtiy, WDC

1975, The Art League, Alexandria, VA

1977, The Diane Brown Gallery, WDC

1979, Landscapes on Paper, Diane Brown Gallery, WDC

1979, Wall Pieces, Gallery Grace, San Francisco, CA

1980, Wood and Clay, Diane Brown Gallery, WDC

1982, Animal Image, Griffith Gallery, Coral Gables, FL

1982, Image Revealed, Diane Brown Gallery, WDC

1986, Sculpture and Painting, Franz Bader Gallery, WDC

1987, Wall Pieces, Franz Bader Gallery, WDC

2001, Gallery K, WDC

2002, Jane Haslem Gallery, WDC

2004, Small Animal Sculptures, Watkins Gallery, American Universtiy, WDC

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1953 - 57, Watkins Gallery, American University, WDC

1956, Area Exhibition Corcoran Galllery, WDC

1958 - 66, The Studio Gallery, Alexandria, VA

1959, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

1959 - 66, Society of Washing Artists, presented by Smithsonian 

1962, Regional Exhibtions, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA

1964, Regional Exhibtions, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA

1965-66, Jefferson Place Gallery, WDC

1970, Small Sculpture,  Corcoran Gallery, WDC

1970, Ten Washington Artists, Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Canada

1970, New Sculpture, Corcoran Gallery of Art, WDC

1971, Washington Artists, Hood College, Frederick, MD

1972, 11 from Washington, 55 Mercier Street Gallery, NYC

1974, Washington Invitational, Adams Davidson Gallery, NYC

1974, Area Exhibition Corcoran Gallery, WDC

1976, Polo Gallery, WDC

1976, Three Washington Artists, Corcoran Gallery of Art, WDC

1978, Washington Democratic Club, WDC

1979, Washington Sculptors, Art Barn Gallery, WDC

1979, Women Artists in Museum Collections, Universtiy of Maryland

1979, City Art, WDC

1980, Drawings by 13 Washington Sculptors, Diane Brown Gallery, WDC

1980, Images of the 70's, 9 Washington Artists, Corcoran Gallery, WDC

1980, Twenty-two Washington Sculptors, WPA, WDC

1980, Hood College, Frederick, MD

1984, Sited Toward the Future, Arlington Art Center, Arlington, VA

1985, The Washington Show, Corcoran Galley of Art

1986, New Sculptors, Franz Bader Gallery, WDC

1986, Clay, Tyler Gallery, NVCC, Alexandria, VA

1990, Sculpture as Table, Franz Bader Gallery

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Smithsonian American Museum of Art

Emily Sleeping, from the Washington Portfolio '74, LIthograph on paper, 22 x 30 inches, Gift of the Washington Printmaker's Inc, No photo available

Emily Sleeping, from the Washington Portfolio '74, LIthograph on paper, 22 3/8 x 30 inches, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts, No photo available

National Gallery of Art

Emily Sleeping, 1974 Lithograph, Gift of the Washington Printmaker's Inc, No photo available 

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Phillips Collection

Studio Gallery’s Founding Mothers