Edith Lawrence

Lawrence was born in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey and was the youngest daughter of George Adams Lawrence the owner of a grocery store in central London.[1] She attended Queen's College, London until 1908 and then studied at the Slade School of Art in London between 1910 and 1914.[2] At the Slade, Lawrence was a prize winning student, gaining first-class certificates for both painting and drawing.[3] In 1917 she first exhibited paintings at both the Royal Academy and with the New English Art Club.[2] Also in 1917 Lawrence began teaching art at Runston Hill School.[2] In 1922 Lawrence met the painter and linocut artist Claude Flight and the two became lifelong companions.[4] After living at his studio in St John's Wood for a time, the couple set up a new studio in 1927 off Baker Street from where they run an interior decoration business and produced murals, textiles and decorative household objects.[1] Lawrence also exhibited on a regular basis throughout the 1930s at both the Ward and Redfern galleries.[4] During her career Lawrence also exhibited with the Society of Women Artists, the National Portrait Society and with the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-colours.[3] A joint exhibition of Lawrence and Flight's work was held at the Embroiderer's Guild in 1937 and they wrote and illustrated three books for children together.[1] In June Lawrence and Flight moved to a village in Wiltshire but retained their London studio which was subsequently destroyed in the Blitz.[1]

Lawrence nursed Flight from 1947, when he suffered a stroke, until his death in 1955.[1] By then Lawrence's eye-sight was failing but a cataract operation allowed her to continue painting.[1] A career retrospective of Lawrence's work was held at the University of Hull in the summer of 1973 and a memorial exhibition in her honour was held at the Parkin Gallery in London later that year, following her death at a nursing home in Salisbury.[1]