The Cordova daily times., 1923-02-12
MASTERPIECE OF LAURENCE FOR OUR SCHOOLS

The fame of Sydney Laurence, who initiated and perpetuated Alaskan art in it's highest sense, will go down to posterity through the munificent gift to the Territory of Alaska of the largest canvas of Mt. Mckinley em- anating from the brush of this facile artist. The picture, which will re- quire six weeks to complete, will be six by four feet and will be presented to the Territory through the Parent Teachers Association of Anchorage. The only stipulation which will ac- company the picture will be that it shall remain the property of the Ter ritory and hang in the Anchorage school. This wonderful canvas will embody many new and interesting features of this highest mountain peak in America, of which Mr. Lau- renee has made a careful study at went to Anchorage in 1915, and i'm and startling color effects and de- tails of outline never before attempt ed by the artist.
 Came to Alaska in 1903
 Coming to Alaska in 1903, he es- tablished headquarters at Tyonic, on Cook Inlet, from which place he and Sir Percy Craigtree embarked on a prospecting trip into the Kuskokwim.
 Mr Laurence was in Cordova dur ing the construction of the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad. He came to Anchorage in 1915, and i'm mediately concentrated his talents upon Mout Mckinley. Possibly no artist has encountered the multiple color problems that have confronted MT. Laurence, nor which required more study and deftness Of brush in reproducing. His masterpieces of the great peak have won fame in Amerl- ca and abroad, a canvas of his a marine, purchased by the French Gov ernment, hangs in the Louvre. An other, a Mt. Mckinley, hangs in the National Library at Washington: g third was purchased by the British Government and hangs in London. while a fourth was acquired by the American Lithographing Company
 Working Under Inspiration
 In painting the present canvas MT, Laurence is working under the artis- tic inspiration of embodying in the undertaking his greatest master piece.
 In the development of arts and sciences MT Laurence has placed his handiwork indelibly upon the Terri tory's history. Coming of a sea- faring and military family, he artist carries a master pilots license. His famous marines are the product of life on the bridge. Born in New York City in 1865, the lure of the sea and travel drew Mr. Laurence to South Africa, where, with Rudyard Kipling he was captured and held as a prisoner of war for having entered the British lines without permission With Kipling he was set to work as associate editor of the Bloomfontoln Herald. MT. Laurences family fig ures prominently in American his tory. His father was Major General Laurence of the Union Army, com missioned by Abraham Lincoln. A brother of Sydney Laurence, Colonel Sturgis Laurence, was cOntmandeF of the port of New York during the late war. In his career as an artist Captain Sydney Laurence has won the degrees of R. B. A., GIL, A. M. C., and F. A. s.
 The canvas when finished will De hung in the Anchorage schoole and will represent, in addition to it's ma terial value an intrinsic worth which time will place among the master pieces of modern art