Sir Lawrence Gowing (21 April 1918 - 5 February 1991) was a British artist, writer,
curator and teacher. Initially recognized as a portrait and landscape painter, he quickly rose to prominence as an art educator, writer, and eventually, curator and museum trustee. As a student of art history he was largely self-taught.[1]
He was born Lawrence Burnett Gowing to Horace Gowing, a draper, and his wife, Louise. Born in
Stoke Newington and raised in London, his first painting of note, Mare Street, Hackney, made reference to his father's shop. After attending the
Downs School at
Colwall,
Herefordshire and
Leighton Park School, in 1938 he enrolled in the
Euston Road School, where he studied with
William Coldstream. He was a
conscientious objector during
World War II.[2] In the 1940s he became recognised as a painter, and for the rest of his life was sought after to paint casual but quintessential portraits of the eminent, among whom were
Clement Attlee,
Lord Halifax, and
Edgar Adrian.
He began teaching in 1948, first as Professor of Fine Art, at
King's College,
University of Durham at Newcastle upon Tyne (now
Newcastle University) from 1948–58, then as Principal of
Chelsea School of Art from 1958–65, as Professor of Fine Arts at
Leeds University, finally serving as principal of the
Slade School of Fine Art at
University College, London from 1975-85. Concurrently, he authored a number of art monographs and catalogues on masters such as
Vermeer,
William Hogarth,
J.M.W. Turner,
Cézanne,
Matisse, and
Lucian Freud. Among the major exhibitions he organized were those for Turner at the
Museum of Modern Art in 1966, Matisse in New York in 1966 and London in 1968, and Cézanne, which traveled in 1988-89 from the
Royal Academy to the
Musée d'Orsay and the
National Gallery of Art.
Sir Lawrence was a trustee of the
Tate Gallery, the
National Portrait Gallery, and the
British Museum, and was a member of the
Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1978, he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and was made honorary curator of its collections in 1985. Beginning in the 1960s he traveled to the United States to serve as Kress Professor at the National Gallery in
Washington, D.C., and was also curator of the
Phillips Collection in Washington.
Knighted in 1982, he was made a
chevalier in the
Order of Arts and Letters in France in 1985.
A first marriage, to
Julia Strachey, a member of the
Bloomsbury Group, ended in divorce. In 1967 he married Jenny Wallis. Sir Lawrence had three daughters. He died of heart failure at the age of 72.