Alexander Lawrie

Background

Alexander Lawrie was born in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Alexander Lawrie, merchant, and his wife, Sarah Coombe.

Education

According to one account, he was apprenticed to an engraver at fifteen. He studied in the life and antique classes of the National Academy of Design. In 1854 he went abroad for three years' study under E. Leutze, at Düsseldorf, under Picot in Paris, and under Greek and Italian painters in Florence.

Career

Between the years 1850 and 1854 Lawrie was living in Philadelphia and showing crayon portrait heads, among them one of Thomas Sully, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1858, he opened a studio in Philadelphia, where he regularly exhibited work in oils--portraits, landscapes, genre--until 1864.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted (April 18, 1861) in the 17th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. He was discharged in August and reënlisted September 5, becoming captain of Company B, 121st Pennsylvania Volunteers. Early in 1863 he was disabled and was discharged the following June.

On his recovery he again went abroad to study, but before 1866 returned to New York, where he spent the best years of his professional life. For a decade his work was a regular feature of the annual exhibitions of the Academy, to which he contributed ideal figure pieces, portraits in oil and crayon, and landscapes painted in the Adirondacks or the highlands of the Hudson. In 1868 he was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design.

To the Centennial Exhibition he sent two canvases, "A Monk Playing a Violoncello, " and "Autumn in the Hudson Highlands. " Among the best of his crayon portraits, of which he is said to have executed "upwards of a thousand, " are those of Richard Henry Stoddard, Thomas Buchanan Read, and George Henry Boker. His portraits in oil include one of Judge Sutherland painted for the American Bar Association, and one of Gen. Zealous B. Tower, for the United States Military Academy at West Point. The erroneous statement, repeated in more than one biographical work, that Lawrie did engraving is probably due to his having been confused with one Robert Lawrie, an English engraver.

Lawrie, who was unmarried, disappeared from public life about 1876. Twenty years later he was living in Chalmers, Indiana, and in 1902 he was admitted to the Indiana State Soldiers' Home at Lafayette, where he remained until his death. At the age of seventy-six, he undertook the painting of a series of portraits of the generals who served in the Civil War, many of them done partly from memory. The task occupied twelve years. The portraits, now hanging in the library of the Soldiers' Home where he died, will probably in time be placed in the State House at Indianapolis.

Achievements

• Lawrie completed over 158 portraits of Generals of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and bequeathed this collection to the State Soldier's home. The collection includes portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Generals Washington, Grant, Burnside, Sheridan, and Sherman. His landscape painting "Autumn in the Hudson Highlands" was highly regarded.

Works

• book

  • book

  • book

  • book

Connections

Father:

Alexander Lawrie

merchant

Mother:

Sarah Coombe