Introduction

"An Irishman born, the instinct for art developed in his childhood, and at ten years of age he was allowed to begin studying at the Old School of Design in Kildare Street, Dublin. He remained there only six months, however, for his family traditions were military, and he was destined for the army. But during the seven years he held a commission in the Connaught Rangers, whether stationed at home or in the East, the artist in him was always craving for expression; he was constantly sketching, constantly making efforts to paint. Regimental routine proved ever irksome to him, and eventually he gave up soldiering, and went to study art in Paris. For a time he worked in Colarossi's atelier, and afterwards he attended a small private class directed by Mucher, the poster-painter. Mucher's method was to draw, in the presence of his pupils, a whole nude figure, explaining as he proceeded how each individual part should be drawn, and teaching scientifically how to look for beauty in odd proportions. Having learnt all that he could from this teaching, Mr. Laurenson went next to Holland, to the village of Egmond, where he studied landscape painting with Mr. George Hitchcock."

"Although he works a great deal in the large studio at 20 Holland Park Road, finishing there his canvases, or biting and printing his etchings and aquatints, his still more workaday studio is his motor-car. To many a happy painting-ground has it taken him, both on the Continent and in England, and many a pleasing picture has he enjoyed painting in it, while countless are the sketches and colour-notes he has made in that peripatetic studio, with the changing skies overhead. It was, I believe, Mr. Laurenson sitting in his motor-car with his friend Mr. Harold Speed, both busily painting on a country road, that suggested Mr. F. H. Townshend's "Punch" drawing of The Lazy Artists. But Mr. Laurenson is far from being a "lazy artist"; he is, on the contrary, always trying to find for himself new vehicles for artistic expression, while his car is characteristic of his energetic and restless search for pictorial opportunities." — M. C. Salaman (1910)

Works

References

Salaman, Malcolm C. “The Pictures and Prints of Edward L. Laurenson.” The Studio. 53 (1910): 216-23. [Complete text in the Victorian Web.


Last modified 7 Februart 2017