Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Knight, Joseph (1837-1909)
KNIGHT, JOSEPH (1837–1909), landscape painter and engraver, son of Joseph and Eliza Knight, was born in London on 27 Jan. 1837. At the age of seven he met with an accident which necessitated the amputation of his right arm at St. Barthomew's Hospital. In 1845 the family removed to Manchester, where Knight spent the earlier part of his career as an artist, visiting France, Holland, and Italy. In 1871 he removed to London and in 1875 to North Wales, where he thenceforth chiefly resided. He made some reputation alike as a painter in oil and in water-colour, and as an engraver and etcher. Welsh scenery furnished the subjects of many of his pictures and engravings, and he was a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy. Knight exhibited from 1861 onward at various London galleries, contributing to the Royal Academy for the first time in 1869. He was elected in 1882 a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and an associate of the Society of Painter Etchers, of which he became a fellow on 13 April 1883. From 1883 to 1908 he sent 104 original mezzotint engravings, varied occasionally by etchings, to the exhibitions of the Painter Etchers; his work was rather monotonous and lacking in expression. He is represented as a painter in the Tate Gallery (Chantrey bequest), Victoria and Albert Museum, the City Art Gallery and Peel Park Gallery, Manchester, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and at Oldham; some engravings are in the British Museum. He died at Bryn Glas, near Conway, on 2 Jan. 1909. In 1859 he married Elizabeth Radford of Manchester, who survived him.
[Graves, Dict. of Artists and Royal Acad. Exhibitors, iv. 346; The Times, 6 and 11 Jan. 1909; private information.]