Sonia Lawson R.A.
1950-1969
Graduate and
postgraduate studies at
Royal College of Art.
Travelling scholarship to
France.
One of four young artists
selected for John
Schlesinger’s BBC TV
Monitor documentary
“Private View”.
Solo Exhibitions
1960 Zwemmer Gallery, London
1963 New Arts Centre, London
1964 Queens Square Gallery, Leeds
1967 Trafford Gallery, London
1955-
1960
1960
Selected Exhibitions
1960 London Group.
1960 Royal Academy of Arts,London.
Royal Watercolour Society
1962 Cheltenham Art Gallery:
Six Young Painters
1963 Liverpool, John Moores
1964 Stratford-upon-Avon,
Shakespeare Festival
Leeds City Art Gallery:
“Round About London Galleries”
Biography
1970-1985
1982
Elected Royal Academician
1984
Elected to Royal Watercolour
Society.
Eastern Arts Drawing Prize.
Rowney Drawing Prize.
Commission— Imperial War
Museum to record British
Army of the Rhine exercise
“Operation Lionheart”
Wesphalia.Germany.
“Homage to my Friends”
(from Giotto to Janis Joplin),
Billingham and Middlesbrough
Central Library, Bradford
Open University, Milton Keynes
Darlington Art Gallery
Harrogate Art Gallery
Northern Artists’ Gallery,
Harrogate
“Shrines of Life”- retrospective
touring to Central Art Gallery,
Milton Keynes
Mappin Gallery, Sheffield
Leicester Polytechnic
Cartwright Hall, Bradford
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
(organiser Edna Read)
West Yorkshire Arts Association,
Kirklees
1973
1977
1979
1980
1982-
1983
1984
“Midnight Muse”, Manchester
City Art Gallery
Cartwright Hall, Bradford
Boundary Gallery, London
University of Birmingham
Boundary Gallery, London
Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax
Retrospective (30 years)
1986-1996
1987
1989
1994
London, Trafford Gallery
London, Royal Academy Jubilee: 25
Years of British Art
Milton Keynes, Cranfield College.
“Fragments Against Ruin”,Arts Council
“The Subjective Eye”, Midland Group
Arts Council
London, Moira Kelly Fine Art
London and Edinburgh, Fruit Market
Hayward Annual. British Drawing
(Eastern Arts/Tolly Cobbold 55-86
Touring Exhibition)
New York, Britain Salutes New York.“8
in the 80s” Moira Kelly Fine Art. Green
St. SoHo
First Prize “Drawing for All”
Gainsborough House, Eastern Arts
Touring
1985 “Critics Choice”, Leeds City Art
Gallery
Bradford Central Library: “Collectors
Choice”,
London Group, R.C.A. Gallery
Sheffield, Graves. “Frail Peace”
Personal Visions on War
London: Arthur Young Industrial
Sponsors Exhibition
1970
1977
1978
1981-
1982
1981-
1983
1982
1982-
1983
1983
1984
1985
1997-Present
Boundary Gallery, London. NW8
Shire Hall, Stafford.
Royal West of England Academy.
Bristol. Retrospective Exhibition.
Boundary Gallery. London
Carlow Arts Festival. Eire.
Vertigo Gallery. London
Boundary Gallery. London
University of Birmingham
Boundary Gallery. London
Aylesbury Museum & Gallery.
Points of Departure Retrospective
Wakefield City Art Gallery,
West Yorkshire. Solo Exhibition
Mercer Art Gallery: Paintings,
Passions and Alarms.
Retrospective
1998
1995
1996
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2008
2000
Solo Exhibitions
Selected Exhibitions
Biography
Cover illustration. Women’s
Lives into Print. Theory,
Practise and Writing of Feminist
Auto/Biography. Macmillan
Press. Edited by Pauline Polkey
Cover illustration. Ways of
Returning. poems by Linda
Saunders 2004 Arrowhead
Honorary Royal West of
England Academician
Open University Lecture.
Points of Departure
Lorne Scholarship.
London University.
Commissioned by Archbishop
of Canterbury. Painting for
Pope in celebration of
ecumenical accord.
Eastern Arts Drawing Prize.
Commission— Book
illustrations to accompany
Poems by James Kirkup,
‘Look at it this way’.
Rockingham Press.
Commission—
University of Birmingham
2 Works: Guardian I & II
Commission—Drawings
published in conjunction with
Fay Weldon short story, ‘New
Years Eve’.
Clarion Publishing.
1986-
1987
1989
1990
1993
1994
1995
Solo Exhibitions
Selected Exhibitions
Biography
Leicestershire Invited Artists
Gainsborough House.“Drawing For
All’ Eastern Arts Touring
Leeds Polytechnic:“New Art in
Yorkshire”
London SW7. Royal College of
Art.‘Exhibition Road’
Over 80 eminent painters who
studied at the college celebrating the
RCA’s 150th anniversary
Edinburgh, Kingfisher Gallery
John Moores, Liverpool
Gallerie Zur Alten Deutschen
Schule,Thun, Switzerland
Boundary Gallery, London. NW8
Connaught Brown, London.W1
Lamont Gallery, London. E2
Mercury Gallery, London. W1
Royal Watercolour Society, London.
1986
1987
1988
1988
1991-
1992
1993-
1999
1995-
1998
1993-
1999
1993
1993-
1995
1992
1999
2004
2005
2008
Solo Exhibitions
Selected Exhibitions
Biography
1996-
1999
1997
2001
2004-
2005
Boundary Gallery, London. NW8
Lamont Gallery, London. E2
Royal Watercolour Society, London.
Discerning Eye.Mall Galleries,
London.
Nottingham University “ Representing
Lives”
Featured artist RWS
London:Bankside
Visual Wit. Royal Academy, London
One Hundred Years: One hundred
Works
RWA 18th Sept- 28th October 2013
Mercer Art Gallery Harrogate
Art and Yorkshire: From Turner to
Hockney
12 April - 12 October 2014
Only Connect: Mixed Exhibition
Royal Academy. London. [LINK}
Women of Vision RWA. Bristol
16 Dec 2017 - 11 March 2018.
[LINK]
2001
Annually Exhibiting
Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Royal Watercolour Society, London.
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol.
Selected Arts Fairs.
Stratford Upon Avon.
2 paintings commissioned
by Richard Buckle to mark
the 4th centenary of
Shakespeare’s birth.
2013
2014
2015-
2016
Sonia Lawson was born in
Wensleydale into a family of
artists.
Her father Fred Lawson and her
mother Muriel Metcalfe were both
artists.
Many like minded, creative people would journey to meet them in
their remote cottage in the village of Castle Bolton.
Such visitors included J.B Priestly, James Kirkup, Jacob Kramer and
Philip Naviasky.
Sonia studied at the Royal College of Art and later became visiting
tutor to the Royal Academy Schools for many
years.
She was elected to the Royal Academy in 1982.
“She once observed of herself that ‘I
am in painting like a fisherman is part
of the sea’, paint being the means by
which to land her ‘catch’ of imagery,
which lives in the element in which it
is discovered and is brought out with all the
attendant physical risks that implies. It is not a way
of working likely to endear yourself to critics or
dealers who tend to want to know what to expect
next, as Lawson has found out, but it does make
for the most exhilarating kind of painting
imaginable.”
Quotation from ‘Sonia Lawson: Passions and Alarms’
Nicholas Usherwood. published 2015
Further Links
Atlantic Watch 1992, oil on canvas,
48 x 48 cm
Figure at the Prow 1993
mixed media on paper, 50 x 42 cm
Online Articles:
Night reading series
1980s-2010 Watercolour.
2017
2017-
2018
Boundary Gallery, London. NW8
Lamont Gallery, London. E2
Royal Watercolour Society, London.
Discerning Eye.Mall Galleries,
London.
Nottingham University “ Representing
Lives”
Featured artist RWS
London:Bankside
Visual Wit. Royal Academy, London
One Hundred Years: One hundred
Works
RWA 18th Sept- 28th October 2013
Mercer Art Gallery Harrogate
Art and Yorkshire: From Turner to
Hockney
12 April - 12 October 2014
Only Connect: Mixed Exhibition
Royal Academy. London. [LINK}
Women of Vision RWA. Bristol
16 Dec 2017 - 11 March 2018.
[LINK]