1896-1989
Speight was the son of a Baptist minister. Both of his parents having had previous households, there were twenty people living together in this bustling and highly cultured home. Speight's first love was literature and he published some poems in the local newspapers at a young age. He attended private school at Lewiston, North Carolina, after which he entered Wake Forest in 1916. His first art teacher was Ida Poteat with whom he studied for two years at Meredith College on Saturdays.
After World War I, Speight studied at the Corcoran School for a few months and then went on to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, where he studied with Daniel Garber. He won the Cresson Travelling Scholarship from the Academy in 1923 and again in 1925. After two years as a student teacher, he was promoted to full faculty member. He remained at the Academy until 1961. In 1934-35, he was a visiting instructor at the University of North Carolina.
He married the artist Sarah Jane Blakeslee in 1936 and they purchased a farmhouse near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in 1944. From 1945-46, he taught in England and Germany for the US Army.
In 1961 Speight was appointed artist in residence at East Carolina College, a retrospective of his work was held at the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh), and an exhibit of his paintings was held at the Florence Museum, South Carolina.
As a student Speight painted and lived in the industrial suburbs of Philadelphia, especially at Manayunk and Conshohocken. These districts, now within the Philadelphia city limits, were old settlements with steep hillsides piled with factories and old stone grain mills which flourished after the Civil War on the Schuylkill River. Much of Speight's work focuses on picturesque industrial and landscape themes inspired by these places.
After World War I, Speight studied at the Corcoran School for a few months and then went on to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, where he studied with Daniel Garber. He won the Cresson Travelling Scholarship from the Academy in 1923 and again in 1925. After two years as a student teacher, he was promoted to full faculty member. He remained at the Academy until 1961. In 1934-35, he was a visiting instructor at the University of North Carolina.
He married the artist Sarah Jane Blakeslee in 1936 and they purchased a farmhouse near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in 1944. From 1945-46, he taught in England and Germany for the US Army.
In 1961 Speight was appointed artist in residence at East Carolina College, a retrospective of his work was held at the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh), and an exhibit of his paintings was held at the Florence Museum, South Carolina.
As a student Speight painted and lived in the industrial suburbs of Philadelphia, especially at Manayunk and Conshohocken. These districts, now within the Philadelphia city limits, were old settlements with steep hillsides piled with factories and old stone grain mills which flourished after the Civil War on the Schuylkill River. Much of Speight's work focuses on picturesque industrial and landscape themes inspired by these places.
