Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Lawson, George Anderson
LAWSON, GEORGE ANDERSON (1832–1904), sculptor, born at Edinburgh in 1832, was son of David Lawson by his wife Anne Campbell. After early education at George Heriot's Hospital and training under Alexander Handyside Ritchie [q. v.] and in the schools of the Royal Scottish Academy, Lawson went to Rome, where he was a critical admirer of John Gibson [q. v.]. Returning to England, he made his home for some years at Liverpool, gaining a considerable local reputation for imaginative groups and figures in terra-cotta. In 1862 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a marble statuette of ‘Jeannie Deans,’ and in 1866 he went to London. In 1868 his ‘Dominie Sampson,’ a humorous representation, free from all exaggeration, of the old pedant in Scott's ‘Guy Mannering,’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy and gained wide popularity. Lawson continued to exhibit regularly, gradually abandoning, however, the picturesque and romantic style of his earlier works for a greater classical severity. He produced some charming studies of adolescence, among them 'Callicles' (R.A. 1879; now in the possession of Lady Pease), suggested by Matthew Arnold's 'Empedocles on Etna,' and 'Daphne' (R.A. 1880). More ambitious, though not more successful, works were 'In the Arena' (R.A. 1878) and 'Cleopatra' (R.A, 1881), the former a spirited representation of a struggle between athlete and panther, while the latter shows the Egyptian queen djdng of the asp's sting. 'The Danaid' (R.A. 1882), a listless figure full of weariness and dejection carrying an urn to the fountain, and 'Old Marjorie' (R.A. 1890), a fine study of an old Scottish woman's head, also had admirers.
In portraiture the Burns memorial at Ayr (R.A. 1893), a replica of which was erected in Melbourne in 1903, was his best-known work. He also executed the Wellington monument in Liverpool, and statues of Joseph Pease for Darlington and James Arthur for Glasgow, and he exhibited at the Royal Academy busts of George Macdonald (1871) and others. All his work showed intellectual effort, but at times it lacked spontaneity and freshness.
Lawson died at Richmond, Surrey, on 23 Sept. 1904. He married on 28 Aug. 1862 Jane, daughter of Matthew Frier of Edinburgh; they had no issue. A portrait in oils of Lawson, by John Pettie, R.A., is in the possession of his nephew, Mr. Matthew F. Lawson, at Seaforth, Bridge of Allan.
[The Times, 24 Sept. 1904; Spielmann's British Sculpture, 1901; art. on Sculpture in Encyc. Brit. 11th edit.; art. by Edmund Gosse in Century Mag., July 1883; Graves's Roy. Acad. Exhibitors.]