Provenance
Private collection
Note: Painter and draughtswoman Phyllis Lawson was born in 1919 in London. After her parents opposed her ambition to become an artist, she left home and worked to support herself, taking fine art classes at Willesden Art College and painting in her spare time. In 1955, after meeting the painter Josef Herman at an exhibition of his work, she asked him to tutor her in painting and he became a major influence upon her practice and subject matter. In the mid 1950s she travelled to Bolivia, where she spent five years painting scenes of local life and held her first solo exhibition in La Paz in 1958. Afterwards, ambassadors to Bolivia from the UK, USA and Italy all purchased examples of her work. Between 1958 and 1986 she also produced drawings, woodcuts, and linocuts and a solo exhibition of her drawings was held at Ben Uri in 1969.