Ernest Lawson

(1873-1939)

Much has been written about the group of painters who chose to resist the “pretty” pictures of the traditional Impressionists in favor of depicting an urban reality. They banded together for a show at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908 and “The Eight” or “The Ash Can School” as they were sometimes called, was born. Ernest Lawson was part of this group, which included William Glackens, John Sloan, and Everett Shinn. Yet Lawson was not an easy fit; he was predominantly a pure landscape artist. Rarely did figures appear in his work; he much preferred the bridges, rivers and creeks in the suburban “wilderness” of Washington Heights rather than the teeming streets, overcrowded tenements, and skyscrapers that characterized the paintings of the other Ash Can artists. I was attracted to Lawson’s distinctive interest in layering or building up pigment and creating what critics of his day termed the “crushed jewel” effect. The first example of Lawson’s that I bought (more accurately, could afford) came in 1969 from Marbella Gallery and although only a simple mountain scene does vividly reflect Lawson’s love for the textural, three-dimensional quality of the paint itself. A second smaller but fully realized composition became available several years later and again I felt it reflected the qualities of Lawson’s palette and brushwork I’d come to admire, along with the rest of the art buying public, since Ernest Lawson had become a “hot artist.”