# Ernest Lawson artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/ernest-lawson/
Profile generated: 2026-08-19T21:15:16.247Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1873-03-22
- Death date: 1939-12-18
- Nationality: American, Canadian
- Movements: American Impressionism, The Eight, Ashcan School context
- Common media: Oil on canvas, Painting

## Portrait

![Ernest Lawson](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/Ernest_Lawson%2C_N.A._%28I0007917%29.jpg/1280px-Ernest_Lawson%2C_N.A._%28I0007917%29.jpg)
All images from the M.O. Hammond fonds were uploaded as part of the Archives of Ontario’s GLAM Wiki project. · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ernest_Lawson,_N.A._(I0007917).jpg

## About Ernest Lawson

Ernest Lawson (1873–1939) was a Canadian-born American painter best known for landscapes. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he became associated with The Eight, the loosely organized group of American artists whose 1908 exhibition challenged restrictive academic exhibition practices. Lawson is frequently discussed within American Impressionism and the broader Ashcan School context, although his landscape-centered practice differs from the urban social observation most closely associated with that school. His work combines atmospheric color and broken brushwork with firmly observed terrain, buildings, waterways, and bridges. Snow-covered scenery and views around the Harlem River are especially relevant to his documented museum work, while a smaller part of his output treats realistic urban subjects. Collectors encounter Lawson primarily through oil paintings of landscapes and city-edge environments. National Gallery of Art records provide institutional examples of his river, winter, and bridge imagery, helping distinguish his established subject matter from broader or uncertain auction attributions.

## Common works and media

Lawson is most strongly documented as a landscape painter working in oil on canvas. Museum examples include winter river scenery, boats, waterfront buildings, trees, roads, bridges, and figures within city-edge landscapes. Realistic urban views form a smaller documented part of his practice. Auction data also groups some records under works on paper and prints, but those broad labels should be checked against the individual object's medium, authorship, and edition information before comparison.

## Market and appraisal context

Appraising an Ernest Lawson work requires comparison with closely related examples rather than reliance on an artist-wide average. Medium, dimensions, date, subject, condition, restoration, surface quality, signature, inscriptions, and attribution confidence can all affect how a work compares with public sales. Provenance, exhibition history, and references in scholarly or museum records may provide additional support. Landscape paintings should be compared with works sharing similar setting, season, scale, and execution; urban or bridge subjects may require a different comparable group. Appraisily's records identify paintings as the principal auction category and also include broad works-on-paper and print classifications. Public results remain only a starting point because private transactions, incomplete feeds, buyer-premium reporting, and later attribution changes may limit direct comparisons.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine researched identity information with matched public auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. Record coverage may be incomplete, so object-level examination and current evidence remain essential.

## Sources

- National Gallery of Art: https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.22244.html
- IdRef: https://www.idref.fr/071015639
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1185478
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500026852
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/61685
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Lawson
- Wikipedia: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Lawson
- Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Lawson
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/ernest-lawson/