Ernest
Lawson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1873. He moved to
Kansas City, Missouri in 1888 where his father was practicing
medicine. Lawson enrolled in classes at the Kansas City Art
League School, but without sufficient money for art studies,
he accompanied his father the following year to Mexico City,
where he found work as a draughtsman for an engineering company.
By
1890, Lawson moved to New York and commenced studies at the Art
Students League under John Henry Twachtman, who had an immense
impact on the young artist's work.
Devoted
to landscape painting, Lawson moved to Washington Heights in Manhattan
in 1898 where no buildings obstructed the view of the Hudson River,
which he loved to depict. Lawson painted his most important canvases
during his eight years in Washington Heights.
In
1908, Lawson participated in the landmark exhibition of The Eight
at the MacBeth Galleries in New York, despite his stylistic separation
from the Ashcan aesthetic of Robert Henri and his circle. Lawson
also participated in such monumental exhibitions as the 1913 Armory
Show and the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition.
Part of a group of New York painters called "The Eight,"
he was fascinated by the urban environment of early 20th-century
New York. His style was close to pure Impressionism, and many
of his works focus on the influence of human beings on the landscapes,
quite often with the suggestion that someone has just been a part
of the scene.
Lawson
suffered financial difficulties late in his career despite his
renowned reputation. In 1936, suffering from rheumatoid arthritis
which allowed him to paint only intermittently, Lawson settled
in Coral Gables Florida. In 1939, Lawson's dead body was found
on the beach. It is unclear whether he suffered a heart attack,
committed suicide, or was the victim of an attack on the beach
on the morning of December 18th.
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