Louis Aston Knight was the son of the American expatriate painter, Daniel Ridgway Knight. Daniel Ridgway Knight was born in America and began studying art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. In 1872, he traveled to Paris and continued to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Thereafter, he remained in Europe, and studied in the academic studios of the Romantic Salon painters, Jules Ernst Meissonier and Charles Gleyre and the Impressionists, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley.
n 1873, Louis Aston Knight was born in Paris. Unlike his father, Aston Knight was raised and educated in Europe. Knight attended the Chigwell School in England for his Liberal Arts Education and began his artistic training, under the guidance of his father.
Later he studied formally with the great French Romantic painters, Robert Fleury and Jules Lefebvre. In 1894 Aston Knight debuted at the Paris Salon, starting a highly acclaimed career. Among his many awards, he won a Bronze medal at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, an honorable mention at the Paris Salon in 1901, a gold medal in Lyon in 1903, a gold medal in Geneva and in Nantes in 1904, and Gold medals at the Paris Salon in both 1905 and 1906, earning him the title Hors concours as the first American to win two gold medals at the Salon in two consecutive years.
Knight, was also made a knight of the Legion of Honor in 1924 becoming an officer in 1928 and eventually a commander in 1934.
Louis Aston Knight is most famous for his French landscapes. You will not find figures in his work, due to an agreement, which he made with his father, in order to keep their work from looking too similar. This was however unnecessary, because their work is very different. Ridgway Knight painted tightly, while Aston Knight's work shows a much stronger influence of the Impressionists with whom he was friendly.