Sonia Lawson

[1] Her father Fred Lawson and her mother Muriel Metcalfe, who was 22 years younger, both lived and painted in the small village of Castle Bolton, Wensleydale, North Yorkshire.

Muriel suffered from Graves' Disease and was unable to care for the infant Sonia therefore she was brought up by her mother's sister: Marjorie Walker (née Metcalfe), in the nearby town of Leyburn.

Graduating with First class honours she won a travelling scholarship to France and on her return was one of four young artists selected for John Schlesinger's BBC TV documentary Private View part of the Monitor series.

The paintings of this period include a series of untitled works concerning war and show a hard edged realism depicting torsos and demonic like figures.

"Figure at Dawn" shows a captive awaiting execution, a painting which, according to Carel Weight,[5] Lawson's professor at the Royal College of Art, is as disturbing as any work produced by Francis Bacon.

Sonia Lawson was elected to the Royal Academy in May that year, however in April 1982 she and her husband were badly burnt in a large house fire which destroyed many of her paintings and left her hospitalised for weeks, permanently scarring her hands.

When well enough she accepted a commission by the Imperial War Museum to record the British Armies of the Rhine Exercise "Operation Lionheart" Wesphalia, Germany.