Artists emerging in the post-war period were faced with a dilemma: to be a representational artist or an abstract artist. Sonia Lawson (1934–2023) was a rarity in that she saw the merits in both options and unapologetically integrated them into her art throughout her career. This unwillingness to follow the herd characterised her as a confidently independent artist. Yet this spirited refusal to be easily categorised may also explain why she was less well known than her contemporaries despite her many significant achievements.

Born in Darlington to the artists Fred Lawson (1888–1968) and Muriel Metcalfe (1910–1994), Lawson was raised in the Yorkshire Dales and grew up in a richly creative household. She studied at the Royal College of Art from 1956 to 1960, where her peer group included Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake and David Hockney. She graduated with first-class honours and received a travelling scholarship.

Her earliest paintings, such as Mug with Wild Flowers (c.1961), saw her fuse the traditional with the progressive. In this bold work, Lawson confidently combined gestural marks, distorted perspective and glimpses of realism to reinvigorate the centuries-old still life genre.

Lawson recognised early on that the symbolic power of imagery, whether it was people, animals or objects, held a timeless and universal value that transcended changing styles and tastes.

In Spring (1965), she updated the British landscape tradition by giving it an insistently modern makeover. A horse, birds and suggestions of foliage draw us in but the absence of any fixed and conventional viewpoint results in a beguiling distortion that demands a prolonged consideration of the painting's content and subject matter.

After the initial experimentation of her earliest paintings, her work took an unexpectedly direct and dark turn. She later explained this, saying, 'From the mid 60's to the mid 70's I felt myself to be an artist of conscience and accountability; a witness.'

Highly sensitive to man's inhumanity, Lawson produced a series of paintings that shone a stark light on human cruelty and political persecution, often reflecting the troubling global events of the period. Bound Prisoner (1967) remains one of the starkest paintings of Lawson's career and of post-war British art. A man lies face down, his feet and hands bound. We cannot see his face and we do not know who he is, but he is a human being and that is the unarguable point Lawson makes in this harrowing work.

Paintings such as Bound Prisoner garnered significant attention and led her mentor and friend Professor Carel Weight to say, 'I don't believe Francis Bacon has done anything more disturbing.'

As if to counterbalance her unflinching paintings of human misery, she created pictures of haunting beauty. Sleeping Angel (1976) looks back to religious imagery of centuries past, but Lawson gives the iconography a modern appearance through her sweeping and expressive mark-making.

Even more poetic and visually arresting is Horseman in Snow Flurry (c.1978), which ranks among Lawson's finest canvases. The white horse and its rider are almost enveloped in a snowstorm as they journey through an unforgiving landscape. As with Lawson's best work, this enigmatic painting raises more questions than answers. Who is the man and where is he going?

In 1981, Lawson and her family paid a visit to the Brontë Museum at Haworth in her native Yorkshire. This inspired a series of paintings including Teatime at Haworth with the Brontës. Instead of the bleak moors and tortured emotions many associate with the Brontë sisters, Lawson was drawn to the themes of family life and togetherness and so created a colourful and celebratory painting.

The painting also has a strong autobiographical element, recalling as it does her memories of her childhood home where her parents welcomed visiting artists, poets and academics.

An unlikely commission came in 1984 when she was invited by the Imperial War Museum to record the British army's role in the Exercise Lionheart, the largest British military exercise since the Second World War.

Interior, Guided Weapons Vehicle, 'Swingfire'

In Camouflaged Men in a Trench (1984) she shows three soldiers almost indistinguishable due to the deceptive nature of their camouflage. By employing a complex network of brushstrokes and tones, she created a painting that is not only a convincing record of her subject but one that stands as a quintessential example of her distinctive brand of figurative expressionism.

In 1991, Lawson achieved a major career high when she was elected a full member of the Royal Academy. This was confirmation of the longstanding and deep respect she was held in by her peers.

In 1994 Lawson produced two paintings for the University of Birmingham. Guardian I and Guardian II were painted as a pair, with the imagery of one continuing into the other. The obedient dog, charioteer, horse and bicycle suggest timeless themes of companionship, reliability, permanence and faith. Furthermore, past and present are merged so that time is displaced.

In 2003 Lawson was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Yet even with the slow onset of this debilitating illness, her passion for painting remained undiminished. Night in a Private Garden from 2010 shows two lovers kissing in the centre against a backdrop of illuminated lights and a starry sky. It is a testament to her lifelong love and understanding of symbolic imagery and the communicative power of paint.

In 2015 the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate held a major retrospective of her career, which proved her standing as an artist of rare intellectual curiosity and as an inspired creative force.

Summing up her lifelong aim as an artist, Lawson said:

'My interest is to solve the difficulty of using recognisable imagery, yet having the freedom of abstraction, evading the strictures of narrative, yet still using, say, a boat, a tree, a figure if I want to, and if I use them it is important to simultaneously try and break the bounds of familiarity.'

There are very few artists who can be credited with creating a body of work that has such considerable stylistic and emotional breadth. Lawson's pictures range from the beautiful and poignant to the troubling and unflinching, from the joyful and passionate to the poetic and dreamlike.

Sonia Lawson passed away in 2023.

Jonathan Hajdamach, independent art historian

This content was supported by Jerwood Foundation