Howard Knee

Born in London in 1889, Frederick Howard Knee arrived in Dublin in 1912 where he worked and painted for the rest of his life. Apart from an occasional class at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, Knee was almost entirely self taught. Primarily regarded as a landscape artist, he was a prolific member of the Dublin Sketching Club. He began exhibiting at the RHA in 1916 and continued to do so until 1967. Having switched from oils to watercolours in the early part of his career, his exhibitions at the Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin, proved popular, although in 1952 the Dublin Magazine found them pedestrian and labelled Knee as a "drawing-room painter". His carefully executed watercolour landscapes became a trademark throughout the later years of his career right up until his last exhibition at Combridge's Galleries just prior to his death.