Big Tree, oil on canvasboard, 16 x 20, signed lower right: Normah Knight, Knight was born in Dallas, and her family was the first in their Highland Park neighborhood to own a car. She won her first art competition when she was just nine years old, and sold her first painting when she was fourteen. Knight’s artistic education included attending Southern Methodist University, the Dallas Art Institute, Académie Julian in Paris, and the Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore. In 1931, Rice moved with her family to Harlingen, Texas, where her father bought the R.C. Cola Bottling Company. She co-organized the Rio Grande Valley Art League in 1932, which would spawn ten subsequent branches of leagues. Rice served for ten years as head of the Cultural Arts Program for the State of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. She was the recipient of an extraordinary number of professional accolades, including the prestigious Paul Harris Fellowship Foundation award, and was featured in “Who’s Who in American Women” (1956-59) and in “Who’s Who in American Art” (1959).