Francis Wilfred Lawson

FRANCIS WILFRED LAWSON (Shropshire, England, 1842-1935).
"Children by a flowering tree".
Oil on canvas adhered to táblex.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 164 x 118 cm; 181 x 135 cm (frame).

The humility of the children in the scene is evident in their frayed clothes and the absence of footwear. The closeness and spontaneity between the two suggest a fraternal relationship: the boy, taller in stature, boldly approaches what appears to be a blossoming almond tree, while the girl, with a fearful and pitiful attitude befitting her young age, clings tightly to his arm. The earthy setting that surrounds them evokes an English autumnal landscape.

In addition to his work as a painter of English peasant and humble class genre subjects, Lawson was also an illustrator and worked as a designer at The Graphic. He illustrated an edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs and, with Luke Fildes, Wilkie Collins's The Law and the Lady (1876). Between 1867 and 1913 he exhibited at the Suffolk Street Gallery, the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club, the Grosvenor Gallery, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of British Artists, London; the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the Manchester City Art Gallery; the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; and the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.