Lawrence Forbes-Wolfe’s War of 1812 painting purchased on May 4, 1991 in Nags Head, NC while visiting with Mom and Dad in Duck, NC
Lawrence Forbes-Wolfe is an artist and craftsman based in Piermont, NH. He grew up in rural Iowa near the mighty Mississippi River and was fascinated with arts and crafts at an early age. Despite the fact that most of his time was taken up by farm chores, he eventually saved up enough money to order the Famous Artists course he had seen advertised in magazines and began to fulfill his dream of becoming an artist.
Lawrence attended college in South Carolina and Texas and formalized his art studies at the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, California, focusing there on advertising design and illustration. In Los Angeles, he worked as an assistant animator in an animation studio, and worked on Cinerama Films, including the space film for the 1961-62 Seattle World’s Fair. As a freelance artist, he did layout and set design for a Disney production of a children’s television show and also designed and constructed audio-visual models for a California public school.
In 1966 while traveling in Europe, Lawrence lived and sketched in monasteries at Mt. Athos, Greece. For the next two years, he traveled and worked throughout Europe and Africa, including at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Gabon, West Africa. From there, he traveled to Fez, Morocco, where he lived for a number of months and developed his monoprint technique. His new work was exhibited there in a number of American consulates.
From 1969 to 1972, Lawrence lived in London, England, where he continued to enjoy creating his monoprints and also found a new interest in marine art and restoration of old sailing ship paintings. During this time he had numerous exhibitions in London of his new work.
He returned to New York City in 1972 to concentrate on the monoprints and marine paintings. Between 1972 and 1985 he exhibited his ship paintings in galleries and shows up and down the East Coast. His works may be found in many private collections throughout the United States and Europe. His interest in monoprints continued as he experimented and developed his own oil monotype process.
In 1986 Lawrence moved to New England and now lives in Piermont, NH, with his wife Diana. He continues to paint the old sailing ships, and he is focusing more now on creating and exhibiting his monoprints and other creative pieces.