Paintings of Noted Alumnus T. Allen Lawson Featured In Special Exhibit

The exhibit, in the school’s Chauncey Stillman Gallery, includes select work drawn from private collections. The pieces demonstrate Lawson’s mastery of the landscape genre from his western roots in Wyoming to Maine, a place he has called home for the last decade. The display coincides with a workshop the artist is teaching at the school. The gallery is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“We are delighted that Tim has come home to Lyme to share his art with our students and the community,” said campus dean Todd Jokl.  “In addition to hosting this show of his work, we’re honored that he has agreed to demonstrate the elegant plein air technique that has become his signature.”

The work in his exhibition ranges widely in years from the “Autumn on Bobcat Creek,” a western landscape painted in 1993, to “Bernadette,” a portrait of a mother sheep and two lambs that was completed for his “Neighbors” exhibition in Cody, Wyoming, in 2014.

Lawson came to Lyme in 1986, where he developed his painting skills through intensive studies and practice. After his studies, he returned to the west to paint the landscape in Wyoming.  He later joined longtime friend and fellow artist Geoff Parker in a three-year project during which the pair retraced the route of Lewis and Clark, depicting sites along the trail as they appear 200 years after that historic expedition.

In July 2005, Lawson returned to Lyme to show the results of that undertaking in a show titled “Capturing the Missouri: Lewis and Clark Revisited.”

“The instruction I received while at the academy gave me great confidence to attempt new and different subject matter early on in my career,” said Lawson. “I hope the work in this exhibition shows at least a few of those paths and approaches over the past two decades.”

Born and raised in Sheridan, Wyoming, Lawson also attended the College of Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design) and the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

His distinctions include creating the White House’s holiday card in 2008.  It depicts a view from the Truman Balcony and shows the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial in the distance, a favorite sight of then President George W. Bush. It is now part of the permanent collection of the White House.

He has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums, including The Haggin Museum, the University of Wyoming Art Museum, the Museum of the Rockies, the Capitol Hill Club and the Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Building in Washington, D.C.

His work has been featured in publications including Western Art & Architecture, American Art Collector, PleinAir Magazine, Southwest Art and American Artist.

Among the public collections holding his work are the Portland Art Museum, the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and the Forbes Magazine Collection.  

Lawson’s work is also part of the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum and the Whitney Western Art Museum of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

About Lyme Academy of Fine Arts

Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts is a college of the University of New Haven. Its mission is to educate aspiring artists through a rigorous studio curriculum rooted in figurative and representational art. The college offers a comprehensive liberal arts education essential for advanced critical and creative thought. For more information, visit www.lymeacademy.edu. The University of New Haven is a private, top-tier comprehensive institution recognized as a national leader in experiential education. Founded in 1920 the university enrolls approximately 1,800 graduate students and more than 4,600 undergraduates.