Titania Seidl, Nadia Hebson and Holly Antrum (with Rose O’Gallivan) respond to the legacy of little-known British artist Winifred Knights (1899-1947).

Winifred Knights was the first woman painter to hold a Rome Scholarship; noted for both her meticulous draughtsmanship and her unique sense of dress, she represented Britain at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs. Completing just seven major works, her masterpiece The Deluge (1921) is held in the Tate Collection. In the 1930s Knights collaborated with designers Rolf Engströmer and Peter Malacrida on the interior decoration of Eltham Palace, the Courtauld family’s Art Deco residence in South London. Knights’ diminutive body of work and early death have meant her legacy remains occluded.

‘Moda WK’ explores the generative possibilities of ‘subjective biography’ and the creative significance of female friendship. In recasting an expanded artistic inheritance the artists have been able to consider misunderstanding and misinterpretation, filmic and painterly narrative, writers/painters block and the expressive significance of dress. The discursive threads that have emerged, both oblique and specific, have served as prompts for a visual conversation.

Works loaned by kind permission of the estate of Winifred Knights and Liss Fine Art.

Titania Seidl (born 1988, Austria) works with painting and assemblage. She studied at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst Vienna and currently holds the Sammlung Lenikus Stipend. A founder of Mauve, Vienna, her recent exhibitions include ‘Redox’, STUDIOS Sammlung Lenikus, Vienna (with Katharina Monka), ‘Anthem’, Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna (with Daniel Ferstl), and ‘Inversion’, Reisnerstr. 9, Vienna (solo).

Nadia Hebson (born 1974, UK) works with painting and objects. She studied at Central St Martins and The Royal Academy Schools. Recent residencies include the British School at Rome, and Lokaal 01, Antwerp. Solo and group exhibitions include: ‘From Flemish Portraiture to Czech Cubist Furniture’, VOLTA NY, New York, ‘Moda WK’, Lokaal 01, Antwerp, ‘The Continuation of Romance’, Rosenfeld Porcini, London and ‘The Jerwood Contemporary Painters’. ‘Moda WK’ is her second curatorial project after ‘The Whiteness of the Whale’, Transition, London (2007), and is a group iteration of her recent solo show for Lokaal 01. A presentation by Hebson on her engagement with Knights will appear in the feminist journal Persona, published by Yale Union in summer 2013.

Holly Antrum (born 1983, UK) works with film and print, guided by multiple starting points. She studied Painting at Wimbledon School of Art and received an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 2011. Recent exhibitions include ‘In the House of Mr and Mrs X’, Temporary Gallery, Cologne, ‘The Stone of Folly’, Down Stairs Gallery, Herefordshire, ‘Deleted Cities’, Generator Projects, Dundee, ‘Apropos the Kissing of a Hand’, Vane, Newcastle upon Tyne, ‘SV12’, Studio Voltaire, and ‘New Contemporaries 2010’, A Foundation, Liverpool and ICA, London. For ‘Moda WK’ Holly Antrum has worked in collaboration with Rose O’Gallivan.

Rose O’Gallivan (born 1984, UK) studied at Falmouth College of Art and received an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 2011. Recent exhibitions include the solo show, ‘mrs soprano' at Furini Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2012), and the group shows ‘Accidentally on Purpose’, QUAD, Derby (2012) and ‘Reception Area’, as part of the Sleeping Upright project, Nottingham (2012), and ‘Shadow Lines’, Tintype, London (2011). In 2013 she was included in ‘Take Me Out’ with Limoncello at the London Art Fair.