Dawson Dawson-Watson

Dawson Dawson-Watson (1864 - 1939)

Born in London, England, Dawson Dawson-Watson was a landscape, portrait, genre, marine and mural painter as well as graphic artist who was the son of a popular English illustrator. He attended grammar school at Southsea, Hampshire. His first art teacher was Mark Fisher, with whom he studied in Steyning, Sussez. A wealthy local brewer then sponsored Dawson-Watson's art training in Paris that included classes with Carolus Duran. While in France, he also studied with Louis-Joseph Raphael Collin and Pierre Paul Leon Glaize. From 1884 to 1890, the artist lived in Giverny, France, near the home of Impressionist Claude Monet, and in 1888, married an American women, Mary Hoyt Sellar, who was traveling in Europe. They came to the United States and he was hired as director of the Hartford Art Society in Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1897, he returned to England but was not successful at making a living. Returning to the United States he taught from 1903 to 1904 at Byrdcliffe Colony, a center for the Arts and Crafts Movement in Woodstock, New York. This was followed by teaching for eleven years at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, serving as art director of a pageant in Brandesville, Missouri, and in 1918, serving a year as director of the San Antonio Art Guild. In 1926, encouraged by members of the San Antonio Art League, he settled permanently in San Antonio. There he participated in many exhibitions, often winning prizes, including first place ($5,000) at the 1927 Edgar B. Davis Competition. He also painted the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Murals include "Meditation" in the Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio and "The Open Book of Nature" at Wichita High School.