Alexander Lawson

Background

Alexander Lawson was born on a farm at Ravenstruthers, Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Education

He received ordinary education.

Career

After school, Lawson went to assist a brother who was in business in Liverpool, but after a year's experience, removed to Manchester. There he became interested in the prints hung in the windows of a bookseller's shop, and determined to became an engraver. He began with a penknife and a smooth halfpenny to cut designs, but the scratched result did not satisfy him, so he had a blacksmith fashion an engraver's tool for him, and with this continued his experiments.

He was charmed by the French engravings of the period, and when he was twenty, determined to go to France to learn the art. Upon discovering that because of the French Revolution, then in progress, he could not go from England to France, he took passage for the United States in 1794. In Philadelphia he found employment with Thackara & Vallance, then at work upon plates for Thomas Dobson's Encyclopaedia, which was the first American edition of the Britannica. While learning to engrave, he spent his free hours in the study of drawing, and after two years with his employers he set up in business for himself.

His first independent work was a series of four plates (1797) to illustrate Thomson's Seasons. When Joel Barlow saw Lawson's plates he expressed his regret at not having had The Columbiad illustrated in the United States (Ward, post). Lawson also engraved plates for the supplemental volumes (1803) of Dobson's Encyclopaedia. For a short time he was in partnership with J. J. Barralet, and engraved the plates for The Powers of Genius (2nd ed. , 1802), by the Rev. John Blair Linn, from designs by Barralet.

Probably the most important incident in his career was his meeting with a fellow Scotsman, Alexander Wilson, the naturalist. The friendship between the two men, begun in 1798, continued until Wilson's death. As it ripened Wilson confessed his ambition to issue a work on American birds, and Lawson finally agreed to engrave the plates for a little less than a dollar a day. He afterward explained his generosity by saying he did it "for the honor of the old country". Wilson's American Ornithology was issued in nine volumes between 1808 and 1814. Lawson's plates, some of which he colored himself, attracted the attention of artists, engravers and naturalists in Europe, and the work established his reputation as an engraver.

He engraved a portrait of Washington, after Stuart; one of Burns, after Nasmyth; and several designs after paintings by John Lewis Krimmel, to whom he acted as guide and patron. His reputation was further enhanced by his plates for Charles Lucien Bonaparte's American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of Birds Inhabiting the United States not Given by Wilson. George Ord wrote from Paris in 1830, after seeing the third volume, that the naturalists in London "united in declaring such work could not be produced in England". He continued to work until ten days before his death, which occurred in Philadelphia. In 1928 he was represented in the exhibition of one hundred notable American engravers at the New York Public Library.

Achievements

• During his career, Lawson produced a great number of plates for maps, charts, and book illustrations. He was best known as the engraver for Alexander Wilson, "American Ornithology: Or the Natural History of the Birds of the United States" and Charles Lucien Bonaparte "American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of Birds Inhabiting the United States not Given by Wilson. "

Connections

Lawson was married, June 6, 1805, to Elizabeth Scaife, a native of Cumberland, England. He had a son who became an artist and two daughters who also displayed artistic talents.

Spouse:

Elizabeth Scaife

Friend:

Alexander Wilson