Ernest Lawson

Ernest Lawson painted landscapes with thick, textured paint and rich, shimmering colour. A critic of the day said his work seemed to come from a “palette of crushed jewels”, and the phrase fits: his snowy riverbanks and city edges glow with blues, violets and pinks.

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he studied in New York under the American Impressionists John Twachtman and J. Alden Weir, and then at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1908 he exhibited with The Eight, the group led by Robert Henri that challenged the National Academy of Design. His favourite subjects were the edges of Manhattan: the Harlem River, Spuyten Duyvil, Fort Tryon Park and the bridges along the water.

In An Abandoned Farm and Approaching Storm, look at the heavy, layered paint surface, which gives his pictures an almost physical quality.