Lawrence Nelson Wilbur

Painter and Printmaker

Lawrence Nelson Wilbur (1897 Whitman, MA - 1988), was an accomplished painter and expert print maker. Wilbur’s father died when he was 16 and he worked to help support his mother, 2 brothers and 1 sister. He attended night classes in Boston Normal Art School (now Massachusetts School of Art). In 1921 he went to California and worked in the engraving department of the "Los Angeles Times". In 1925, he relocated to New York City where he enrolled in the Grand Central Art School and studied under Harvey Dunn, N.C. Wyeth and Pruett Carter. In NYC he was employed by New York’s leading engraving shops and many magazines of the era. He was a life-time member of the Salmagundi Club and won the Audubon Artists medal of honor for his self-portrait in oil, in 1957. His works have been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the National Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian , the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and other institutions.