How painter Winifred Knights became Britain’s ‘unknown genius’

Knights’ use of classical subjects in a modern age made her the most promising painter of the 1920s. So why is she only now receiving her first retrospective exhibition?The Deluge (1920) remains one of the most instantly familiar artworks of the first half of the 20th century. Bought by the Tate in 1989, Winifred Knights’ 6ft canvas is packed with 21 anguished, beseeching figures and a worried-looking dog. The nominal subject is the biblical story of Noah’s ark, but the timeles