page_title: Florian K. Lawton
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Florian K. Lawton / History / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: Salmagundi Club, 47 5th Avenue, Manhattan
context_page_description: Florian Kenneth Lawton was an American visual artist and a realist painter who worked primarily in a regional style.
  Lawton's subjects encompass rural landscapes including lakes, as well as hunting and fishing narratives reflecting his personal interests. Along with his interest in nature, his works reflect his friendships within the Amish community. He created many narrative paintings and drawings that capture the Amish at work and play in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
context_section_description: Supporting a growing family by work for corporate America, Lawton followed his artistic development with exhibitions at the Chautauqua Institute in New York State. He had a regional gallery relationship with the Bonfoey Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, which handled his work successfully for many decades. The late 1960s and 1970s brought more honors and recognition through national exhibitions, for which he received many awards. An instructor at the Cleveland Institute of Art in the 1970s, he was invited to become a member of the Salmagundi Club in New York City. In 1970 he was featured on the Watercolor Page of the American Watercolor magazine. The same year a one artist show at the Bonfoey Gallery sold out. Lawton was a realist painter in the tradition of Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins. His favorite subjects were nature and the people around him. With a passion for the outdoors, sporting subjects were a favorite. Hunting and fishing scenes, produced commissions from patrons throughout the United States. Living in the Great Lakes region, in the 1960s, he became friends with a wide range of Amish families in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana that resulted in a deep respect for their culture and the simplicity in their lives. A large body of narrative paintings and drawings were created of the Amish, from 1969 until the end of his career. His son, Kenneth Lawton, describes his father's interest in the Amish:
  He found the Amish culture to be a perfect fit in terms of his personality. The simplicity of their culture, their reverence for nature. They don’t change things — they work within the balance of nature. That appealed to [my father] very much.
   By 1974 he was able to stop working and paint full time.
  In 1989 the Butler Institute of American Art recognized Lawton's accomplishments with a 25 Year Retrospective and again in 2010 with a 50 Year Retrospective, curated by Dr. Henry Adams, former Curator of American Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and professor of American Art History at Case Western Reserve University. Further national recognition was achieved when a New York art collector and supporter of President Clinton in 2000, had a painting accepted for donation by the White  House.
  Finding inspiration from the land and his deep personal respect for the Amish culture served Lawton throughout his career in all his creative pursuits. Living in the Great Lakes region throughout his life, provided a fascination with the translucence of snow in his paintings. A master of technique, Lawton was able to achieve a transcendental quality in his winter paintings, with his mastery of his use of the 'white on white technique' where the paper is virtually a "pigment" to create an emotional effect on the viewer.
caption: Lawton was invited to become a member of the Salmagundi Club in New York City.
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