A noted Impressionist, Ernest Lawson became known as “the landscape painter of the Eight,” the group at the forefront of early-twentieth century American art. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Lawson took an early interest in drawing. He began his formal training at the Art Students League in New York, studying under John Henry Twachtman. In 1892, he attended the Cos Cob School in Connecticut, run by Twachtman and J. Alden Weir, and developed his Impressionist style of painting. Lawson was heavily influenced by Twachtman’s atmospheric abstractions and employed Impressionist techniques in his paint handling, generous use of light and color, and plein air observation of nature. He generally painted with a palette knife and used his fingers to build up the impasto, creating uniquely tactile surface textures.

Lawson first visited France in 1893 , attending the famous Académie Julian, and later finding inspiration in the work of French Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley. After returning to New York, he began to associate with the members of the Eight: Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, Arthur B. Davies, Everett Shinn, and Maurice Prendergast. Lawson was less concerned with social realism than were the others, but he shared their interest in depicting urban scenery. He beautifully portrayed Washington Heights, Inwood, and the Harlem and East Rivers, amongst other New York locales not typically considered picturesque.

Lawson helped to organize the major exhibitions of the early-twentieth century: the 1908 show of The Eight at MacBeth Galleries, the 1910 exhibition of Independent Artists, and the 1913 Armory Show. He won prizes from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Carnegie Institute, the Salmagundi Club, and the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exposition and was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design. Today, Lawson’s work is in every major American museum, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the White House, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.