Jasper Holman Lawman (1825-1906)
The 19th century American landscape and portrait painter was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1825 and moved to Pittsburgh in 1846 where he died in 1906. Lawman traveled to Paris to study at the atelier of Couture, following which he returned to Pittsburgh and established a studio. In the mid-1860′s he joined an informal group of western Pennsylvania artists know as the “The Scalp Level group” who were known for their “Barbizon” style of landscapes. For the next thirty or so years Lawman flourished as a painter of intimate, dark wooded scenes in which the human presence is subordinated to natural forms.
Jasper Lawman was a frequent exhibitor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and became a part of the early Hudson River School movement. His talents earned him many important portrait commissions and he ultimately became one of the more popular portrait painters in Western Pennsylvania.