She was said to possess an ability to build surface harmony through the use of flat, shadowless forms of generalized color[2] and to use distortion and silhouetted patterning so as to give observers a sense of animation and often amusement.

[3][4][5] During the second decade of the twentieth century Lawson studied at the Art Students League of New York under Kenneth Hayes Miller.

[note 9] In the early 1920s Lawson participated in shows of the Society of Independent Artists[42][43] and when Hamilton Easter Field broke away from that organization to found the Salons of America she not only joined it but became one of its directors.

She and her husband and their two children left Manhattan to settle in a small community on Long Island's north shore and, while she continued to paint, she participated only occasionally in public exhibitions.

[39] When Lawson was 93 a critic summarized her life's work by describing the particular "vivacity, energy and dynamism" of her modernist style which set her apart from other artists and showed her uniquely American outlook.

The critic described Lawson's method as "abstracting rhythms, simplifying descriptions, flattening, generalizing color, eliminating shadow and building an emphatic surface harmony between forms."

Noting Lawson's exuberance and spontaneity, she wrote: "Occasionally viewers will associate the weightlessness of form with fantasy, innocence or naïveté.

[61][note 17] John Howard Lawson (1894–1977) was a playwright, screenwriter, and theatrical producer who joined the Communist Party during the 1930s and in 1950 was jailed for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

[55]: 15 Lawson received part of her early education in at an experimental school, the Children's Playhouse, during a period in which her family was living in the New York suburb of New Rochelle.

[63] After her mother's death in 1901, Lawson's father, who traveled frequently and who, when present, was not a warm and loving parent, employed a governess and other servants to look after her and her brothers.

[58][note 18] Reflecting the family's relatively high social position Lawson's name appeared in the society pages of New York newspapers during her teenage years.

Lawson's father bought and sold real estate as an investment and the family moved frequently among properties that he owned.

[note 20] During the early stages of her career as a professional artist she lived in New York first with her father, then, after her brother John's marriage, with him and his wife, and then on her own in an apartment on 14th Street near Union Square.

[85] After spending summer vacations in Glenwood Landing for two years, they moved permanently to that Long Island village in 1934 and Lawson remained there following Gaylor's death in 1957.

When she died at Huntington Hospital, Long Island, on October 28, 1986, the obituary writer for the New York Times gave her married name as "Gaylord.