| Home | Exhibitions | Artwork | Publications | Artist Index & Search | About |
|
||||||
|
LAWSON WOOD, RI (1878-1957)
Lawson Wood was born on 23 August 1878 into a notably artistic Highgate family: he was the eldest son of the landscapist Pinhorn Wood and the grandson of the painter and printmaker Lewis John Wood. He studied at the Slade School of Art and Heatherley’s and attended evening classes at Frank Calderon’s School of Animal Painting. In 1896, at the age of eighteen, he joined the periodical publishers C Arthur Pearson Ltd, working there for six years and eventually becoming the chief staff artist. During the First World War, he served as an officer in the Kite Balloon Wing of the Royal Flying Corps. An accomplished poster designer, he drew cartoons for a number of periodicals, including the Graphic (1907-11), Punch, the Bystander, the Strand magazine, Nash’s magazine and Fry’s magazine. Under the name of ‘Hustlebuck’, he collaborated with his son-in-law Keith Sholto Douglas. He gained great popularity with his humorous illustrations of animals, including dinosaurs and apes; the monkey, Gran’pop, drawn for the Sketch was a particular favourite. Holding strict control over his copyright, he sold reproductions of his images throughout the world and even set up a factory that made toys to his own design. A member of the London Sketch Club, he was a close friend of Tom Browne, and also worked as a tutor for Percy Bradshaw’s Press Art School. Towards the end of his life he lived as something of a recluse in a mediaeval manor house that he had earlier discovered in Sussex and had rebuilt on a new site in Kent. He died there on 26 October 1957.
For further information, see: A E Johnson, Lawson Wood, London: A & C Black Ltd, 1910
