LAWSON’S GARDEN by Joan K. Yanni

LAWSON’S GARDEN

by Joan K. Yanni

Contrary to rumor, The Garden of Ernest Lawson's painting (51.36) is neither that of Mrs. James Sibley Watson nor Charlotte Whitney Allen, nor any other garden in Rochester. Recent research has disclosed that the painting depicts a garden in Tuxedo Park, New York, about 60 miles north of Manhattan. The information was ferreted out by Dierdre Cunningham, landscape curator at the George Eastman House.. Research on Mrs. Watson's property proved that the painting was not of her garden. But Cunningham was directed to a 1917 article from the Architectural Forum, which described the H.H. Rogers estate in Tuxedo Park. In the article were drawings of the garden and reflecting pool which can be seen in the painting. The drawings and a statement by Lawson's wife that the painter often visited the homes of wealthy patrons were convincing. Cunningham also contacted the present owners of the estate, Allen Yassky and his wife, who supplied current pictures of the garden, which they are now renovating.

Ernest Lawson (1873-1939) was one of The Eight, (Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan were the others) and the only one to paint landscapes almost exclusively.  He was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, where his father was a physician. The family moved to Kansas, where Ernest took some courses from Ella Holman at the Art Institute, then to Mexico City where he worked briefly as an assistant draftsman and attended art class at Santa Clara Art Academy. Though his father considered art an unfit profession, Lawson saved his money and, when he was 18, went to New York City to study at the Art League.

Lawson worked under both J. Alden Weir and John Twachtman before setting out in 1893 for Paris. He attended classes at the Academie Julien for a time, but left to work on his own, using Impressionist techniques that became his hallmark. A meeting with Sisley further influenced his art, and two of his paintings, since lost, were accepted for hanging in the 1894 Salon des Artistes Francais. He had already adopted his jewel-like colors and palette knife technique, which he never abandoned.

In 1894 Lawson moved to New York, was reunited with his former teacher and champion, Ella Holman, and they were married. They settled in Washington Heights, where he painted farmlands and trees, the nearby High Bridge and the picturesque Harlem River, all done with luminous, jewel-like colors, broken brush strokes and impasto layering of paint.

Lawson's reputation continued to grow; he won a silver medal at the St. Louis Universal Exposition in 1904 and a gold at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1907. William Merritt Chase called him "America's greatest landscape painter," and Robert Henri said he was "the biggest we have had since Winslow Homer." Lawson met William Glackens in 1904 and they became lifelong friends. With Glackens, Lawson joined Henri and his circle in their evening get-togethers at Mouquin's Restaurant in Manhattan. Lawson was soft-spoken and introspective. It is hard to imagine him at a meeting of the noisy Eight; but  The Eight were different in style, technique and temperament. "We've come together because we're so unlike," said Henri. When, in 1906, paintings by Glackens, Luks and Shinn were rejected by the Academy, Henri withdrew two of his own paintings, and with his friends decided to have an independent exhibition. The show of The Eight opened in February, 1908, at the Macbeth Gallery. The exhibition has ever since been regarded as a milestone in the development of American realism.

The next upheaval of the art scene took place with the Armory Show in 1913. Arthur Davies had helped import modern French art to exhibit with the Americans. Lawson had three paintings in the show, and other members of The Eight, along with younger painters such as George Bellows, Stuart Davis and Edward Hopper, were represented. But the French Post Impressionists and Cubists stole the show. The American art looked passé compared to the French, and Duchamps' Nude Descending a Staircase, described as "an explosion in a shingle factory," won the most attention.

The American public was not ready for the French, however, and Lawson continued to receive acclaim. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1917, and his works were sold to the Met and to collectors Albert Barnes and Duncan Phillips. Considered one of the best American Impressionists, he was still popular in the 1920s. Gradually, however, tastes changed, Lawson's marriage ended, he was increasingly short of funds, and he turned to alcohol. He found a teaching job at Broadmoor Academy, Colorado, and met Katherine and Royce Powell, who became his benefactors. Some of his last paintings were done when visiting the Powells in Florida. In 1939 he was commissioned to do a mural for the Post Office in Short Hills, NJ. Just after its completion, Lawson was found dead, probably of a heart attack, on a Florida shore.

Source: Curatorial files, Berry-Hill, Henry & Sidney, Ernest Lawson, American Impressionist, F. Blishers, Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, England, 1968; Perlman, Bennard B., The Immortal Eight, Exposition Press, NY, 1962.