Sydney Mortimer Laurence (1865–1940) was an American Romantic

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

painter and (as of 1923)

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

's most prominent.

Early life

Sydney Mortimer Laurence was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, and studied at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

. He married Alexandrina Fredricka Dupre in 1889. He exhibited regularly by the late 1880s. He and his wife traveled to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, settling in 1889 in the English artists' colony of St. Ives,

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

from 1889 to 1898. over the next decade he exhibited at the

Royal Society of British Artists The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fi ...

and was included in the

Paris Salon The Salon (), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. At the ...

in 1890, 1894, and 1895, winning an award in 1894. Laurence came to Alaska in 1903. Most sources wrongly claim that he abandoned his wife and two sons at this time. The Cornwall Artists Index instead states that the couple separated in 1899, and that Alexandrina was recorded as a guest at the St Ives Arts Club in 1912 and 1916. The circumstances surrounding their separation and the motivation for Laurence's move to Alaska are not known.

Alaska

Laurence was the first professionally trained artist to make Alaska his home. He moved to Alaska in 1904 for reasons still unknown. Records from 1907 show he lived in the village of Tyonek on the North Shore of Cook Inlet in Southcentral Alaska, about 60 miles from Ship Creek where Anchorage would begin years later. Living the hard life of the pioneer prospector, he painted little in his first years in the then-District of Alaska, but between 1911 and 1914 he began to focus once again on his art. He moved from Valdez to the nascent town of

Anchorage Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...

in 1915 and by 1920 was Alaska's most prominent painter. Laurence painted a variety of Alaskan scenes in his long and prolific career, among them sailing ships and steamships in Alaskan waters, totem poles in

Southeast Alaska Southeast Alaska, often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern, and sometimes called the Alaska(n) panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian provi ...

, dramatic headlands and the quiet coves and streams of

Cook Inlet Cook Inlet (; Sugpiaq language, Sugpiaq: ''Cungaaciq'') stretches from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage in south-central Alaska. Cook Inlet branches into the Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding ...

, cabins and caches under the

northern lights Northern lights most commonly refers to the aurora borealis, a natural light display in Earth's sky. (The) Northern Light(s) may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Northern Lights'' (1978 film), about the Nonpartisan League in Nort ...

, and

Alaska Natives Alaska Natives (also known as Native Alaskans, Alaskan Indians, or Indigenous Alaskans) are the Indigenous peoples of Alaska that encompass a diverse arena of cultural and linguistic groups, including the Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tli ...

, miners, and trappers engaged in their often solitary lives in the northern wilderness. Painting of Mt

But the image of

Denali Denali (), federally designated as Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak on land, measuring . On p. 20 of Helm ...

from the hills above the rapids of the Tokositna River became his trademark. It is this image more than any other which personifies Laurence for his many admirers and collectors in Alaska and beyond. Laurence forged a uniquely personal style by applying the tonalist techniques he had learned in New York and Europe to the wilderness of the North. He, more than any other artist, defined for Alaskans and others the image of Alaska as "

The Last Frontier The Last Frontier may refer to: Film * ''The Last Frontier'' (1926 film), a Western by George B. Seitz * ''The Last Frontier'' (serial), a 1932 American film serial starring Lon Chaney, Jr * ''The Last Frontier'' (1955 film), a Western by Anth ...

". In May 1927, Laurence married Jeanne Kunath, a French-born artist who had emigrated to the United States in 1920. He died in

on December 10, 1940. Several places were named for Laurence in his adopted hometown. Laurence Court is a short street in the Bootleggers Cove neighborhood of Anchorage. Perhaps the most significant was the Sydney Laurence Auditorium, which sat

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

at the northwest corner of West Sixth Avenue and F Street. This structure was replaced during the 1980s by the

Alaska Center for the Performing Arts The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts is a performance venue in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. Opened in 1988, it hosts over 200,000 patrons annually, and consists of three theaters: * Evangeline Atwood Concert Hall, with 2,000 seats, is designed ...

in what Anchorage called "Project 80s", a large-scale civic improvement program carried out under mayors George M. Sullivan and Tony Knowles; now the Sydney Laurence theater is smallest of three stages at the Performing Arts Center.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Laurence, Sydney 1865 births 1940 deaths Artists from Alaska 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters Politicians from Anchorage, Alaska Painters from Brooklyn People from Valdez, Alaska People from the Territory of Alaska St Ives artists 19th-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists American expatriates in the United Kingdom