Fall 2021 Art Acquisition

Avel de Knight, Untitled (Fisherman & Boats)

Avel C. de Knight was born in New York City to parents from Barbados and Puerto Rico. He was educated in the public schools and studied art at Benjamin Franklin High School. After his service in a segregated U.S. Army unit during World War II, he studied in Paris at the École de Beaux Arts, the Grande Chaumière, and the Académie Julian under the auspices of the GI Bill. He, along with other veteran artists like Herb Gentry, Ellsworth Kelly, and Romare Bearden, sought to cultivate his interests and talents in the exciting environment of postwar Paris. In the 1950s, he began writing as an art critic for various French and American publications.

After later returning to the United States, de Knight continued to develop his studio practice and to exhibit his paintings. He also taught at the Art Students League of New York. Pursuing his eclectic cultural interests, de Knight took advantage of a State Department-sponsored exchange to travel to the Soviet Union, where he visually recorded his impressions of Islamic culture. This experience would later prove influential for the dreamlike vistas of his popular Mirage series, which he began in the late 1960s. Other visual inspirations included the mystical imagery of French Symbolist Odilon Redon and motifs derived from North African cultures. De Knight was elected a full Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1970. He ably served as an instructor at the Academy’s School of Fine Arts from 1981 until his untimely death in 1995.

This handsome watercolor will join works by other collection artists with Afro-Caribbean roots, such as Roberto

Image: Avel de Knight, Untitled (Fisherman & Boats), c. 1960, watercolor on paper, The Art Acquisition and Restoration Fund, The Columbus Museum G.2020.43.2

Lugo, Paul Gardère, and Simon Gouverneur. Other National Academicians in the Museum’s holdings include Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, Alice Neel, and Cecilia Beaux. A welcome addition to the Museum’s collection of works on paper, Untitled (Fisherman & Boats) will feature in an upcoming exhibition spotlighting new acquisitions.

While my life is firmly rooted in the present, my art has consistently looked to a vanished past... and forward to a yet more imagined future.

- Avel de Knight

Avel de Knight, Untitled (Fisherman & Boats)

c. 1960, watercolor on paper, The Art Acquisition and Restoration Fund, The Columbus Museum G.2020.43.2