Raised by a maternal aunt and her husband in Nova Scotia, Ernest Lawson joined his parents in Kansas City in 1888, entering the Kansas City Art Institute. He was also apprenticed to F. Jennings Warrington, a cloth designer. In 1899, Lawson went to Mexico City with his father, where he worked as a draughtsman in an engineering firm, while also attending the Santa Clara Art Academy. When he moved to New York in 1890, Lawson studied with John H. Twatchman and J. Alden Weir at the New York Art Students' League. He continued under them at the Cos Cob summer school, Connecticut, painting his first landscapes en plein air.
By the time Laswon went to Paris in 1893, he had absorbed Impresionist techniques. He briefly attended the Académie Julian, studying with Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant. Lawson shared a studio with the writer Somerset Maugham, who later used him as a model for painter Frederick Lawson in Of Human Bondage. During his European years, Lawson was most influenced by Alfred Sisley, working with the French painter at Moret-sur-Loing near Fountainebleau. In the United States in 1894, Lawson married Ella Holman, his former instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute, and the couple returned to Europe for two years.
Lawson taught briefly in Columbus, Ohio in 1896. He settled in Washington Heights, New York, in 1898, painting views of the Hudson River in winter. It was through William Glackens that Lawson became associated with Robert Henri and other urban realists. In 1908 he participated in the exhibition of The Eight at Macbeth Galleries, New York. He was also a charter member of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, formed in 1910, and helped to organize the Armory Show in 1913. Lawson was also a devoted participant in the National Academy's serial exhibitions. He was first represented in the Annual of 1905, and he continued to contribute to them without interruption through the year of his death; his Harlem River was requested for inclusion in the annual exhibition of 1940. He was awarded the Hallgarten first prize in the annual of 1908; Altman prizes in 1916, 1921, and 1928; the Inness and Saltus medals in 1917 and 1930, respectively; and the Obrig prize in 1934.
Seeking different locations for his landscapes, and suffering financial and personal problems, Lawson travelled frequently. He painted on Cape Cod during the summer of 1912, and on Blue Hill, Maine, the following summer. In 1916, Lawson travelled to Spain, painting picturesque scenes in strong light. He was in Cornish, New Hampshire in 1919 and 1920, and in Newfoundland in 1924.
Lawson taught at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1926, while from 1927 to 1930 he was at the Broadmoor Academy, Colorado Springs. In 1930, he again visited Europe. Beginning in 1931, Lawson was in Florida almost annually, spending warmer months in New York and the Berkshires. He moved permanenetly to Coral Gables in 1936. The Federal Arts Program awarded Lawson a mural commission for the post office at Short Hills, New Jersey, which he completed in 1939. Suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, the artist was able to paint only intermittently during his last years.
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