Sydney Laurence

Sydney Mortimer Laurence

Laurence, Sydney

Sydney Laurence

New York 1865

Seattle

Los Angeles

painter

illustrator

Northwest artist

In 1904 Sydney Laurence became the first professionally trained artist to settle in Alaska, and by 1920 he was the territory's most prominent painter. He was lured from a successful painting career--including exhibitions in New York, London, and Paris--and a wife and children by "the same thing that attracted all the other suckers--gold." When Laurence had no luck after several years as a prospector, he turned back to art to make his way, but stayed on in Alaska, leaving his former life behind. In 1923 he opened a studio in Los Angeles, and spend most winters working there or in Seattle, returning to Alaska almost every summer for the rest of his life.

Artist biography reproduced with permission of Katharine Harmon, author of The Pacific Northwest Landscape: A Painted History.

Male