Ernest Lawson

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1873. Died in Miami, Florida, United States in 1939. Ernest Lawson began to paint at the age of 16 when his family moved to Kansas City. In 1891, Lawson studied at the Arts Students’ League of New York with John N. Twatchman and J. Alden Weir. Two years later, he was in Paris taking courses at the Julian Academy. At the time, he shared a small apartment with the writer Somerset Maughan (who would later create a character by the name of Frederick Lawson who was an artist). He spent his summers at Martigues in the south of France, but also worked at Moret-sur-Loing, near Fontainebleau. In 1908, he was one of the exhibitors at the exhibition of the Group of Eight, a group of American artists.