Ernest Lawson

1873 - 1939

BiographyErnest Lawson was an American Impressionist who was attracted to such unconventional subjects as squatters huts, railroads and bridges across New York's Harlem River. He preferred landscapes to city streets and painted them in thick, smooth impasto, applied with a palette knife. His highly personal use of color led one critic to comment that he seemed to paint form "a palette of crushed jewels".

Lawson was born in Nova Scotia in 1873, the son of a doctor. When his father went to practice in Kansas City, Missouri, young Lawson was left behind and raised by an aunt in Ontario.

He rejoined his parents in Kansas City when he was fifteen, and accompanied his father on a trip to Mexico in 1889. Once there, he worked as a draftsman and studied at the Santa Clara Art Academy in his spare time. This was followed by study at the Art Students League in New York City, and then by work in Connecticut with impressionists John Twachtman and J. Alden Weir.

Lawson also studied at the Académie Julien in Paris, but for most of his two year stay in France, he painted on his own. While there he met Alfred Sisley, who advised him to be more assertive in his brushwork. For a time his work wavered between the conflicting influences of Sisley and Twachtman.

After settling in New York City, Lawson met Robert Henri and was invited to participate in the exhibition of The Eight held in 1908. Lawson also was involved in planning the 1913 New York City Armory Show, where the work he exhibited brought him national recognition.

Like Monet, Lawson often selected a single subject and painted it in different lights and different weather conditions. Early on, he painted many such views of the Harlem River.

Troubled with arthritis in his later years, Lawson moved to Florida where he died in 1939. Lawson was a member of the Century Association, the National Academy of Design, the National Arts Club and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His work is represented in the collections of the Art Gallery of Toronto, Art Institute of Chicago, Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, Brooklyn Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art among others.

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