Son of acclaimed American artist, Daniel Ridgeway Knight, Louis Aston Knight studied under his famous father as well as Jules Lefebvre and Tony Rober-Fleury. Knight’s panache for landscape painting, no doubt influenced by his father, afforded him success in the Paris Salons and in the provinces, as well as in the United States. His awards include several gold medals in Paris, including at the Exposition universelle. He was the first American to win two gold medals at the Salon in two consecutive years. In 1927 he was made an Officier of the Legion d’Honneur.

Though Knight is most famous for his French landscapes, and for paintings set in New York, Florida and California, House at Lebanon New Jersey uniquely depicts a New Jersey scene. The viewpoint of this painting comes from the water – an appropriate perspective for Knight, being that he was known to put on rubber fishing boots and paint with on an easel set up in the water in a plein-air approach to painting. The viewer can almost imagine Knight at work at this piece, actively engaged in studying the flow of the stream around him as he takes in the majestic Lebanon house.

The overall aesthetic feel of this piece is perhaps what makes it most remarkable. Rather than highlight a distinct focal point for his viewers, Knight constructs a scene from within it. Thus, the viewer is entitled to an experience; he is surrounded by the lazy passing of the waters, by the softly blowing breezes, and by the time of day that seems almost irrelevant in the lethargy of the moment.

Lauded for his achievements by both Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Knight has work in collections both nationally and internationally.