Biography:
Daniel Ridgway Knight [1839-1924] was born on March 15, in Pennsylvania. He studied and exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, were he was a classmate of Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins. In 1861, he went to Paris to study at l’École des Beaux-Arts under Cabanel and to apprentice in the atelier of Charles-Gabriel-Gleyre. He returned to Philadelphia in 1863 to serve in the Union Army. During the war, Knight practiced sketching facial expressions and capturing human emotion in his work. He sketched battle scenes, recording the war for history. He founded the Philadelphia Sketch Club, where he showed works that dealt with the Civil War, mythology and scenes from opera. In 1871 Knight married Rebecca Morris Webster and after the wedding he began working as a portrait painter in order to make enough money to return to France.
Daniel Ridgway Knight [1839-1924] was born on March 15, in Pennsylvania. He studied and exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, were he was a classmate of Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins. In 1861, he went to Paris to study at l’École des Beaux-Arts under Cabanel and to apprentice in the atelier of Charles-Gabriel-Gleyre. He returned to Philadelphia in 1863 to serve in the Union Army. During the war, Knight practiced sketching facial expressions and capturing human emotion in his work. He sketched battle scenes, recording the war for history. He founded the Philadelphia Sketch Club, where he showed works that dealt with the Civil War, mythology and scenes from opera. In 1871 Knight married Rebecca Morris Webster and after the wedding he began working as a portrait painter in order to make enough money to return to France.
