The highlight of the exhibition for me was the gypsy and circus portraits, where Knight captures this obscure corner of society in all its regal splendour. There’s a heavy dollop of romanticism in her portrait of Granny Smith (below), but I love the dusky colours and the parallels in pose and style with Knight’s portraits of society ladies. (https://unpopularcultureblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/laura-knight-portraits-national-portrait-gallery/) .. In the late 1930s, Knight made a remarkable series of paintings of English Gypsies, but very little is known about the individuals depicted. Given that they posed within living memory, I felt certain that the sitters would have descendents who might help us learn more about these portraits and their subjects. ...Knight gave these portraits vague titles including; ‘The Gypsy’ and ‘Old Gypsy Woman’, but her book describes the regular visits she made to the Gypsy settlement in Iver, Buckinghamshire, and her favourite sitter; the matriarchal Granny Smith. ...During my visit I heard about the Gypsy lifestyle in the 1930s, when painted wagons still prevailed, and also reminiscences of the Smith family: Lilo Smith, called ‘Granny’, Gilderoy, one of her nine sons, and the enigmatic Freedom, wife of Lilo’s son Harry, whom Knight chose to name ‘Beulah’.... (http://www.npg.org.uk/blog/searching-for-knights-gypsy-sitters)