Artist Florian K. Lawton shares the beauty he finds in the unembellished simplicity of nature and rural life through his accomplished watercolor paintings. Lawton, who has long received wide acclaim for his artwork, is particularly well known for his country landscapes and urban cityscapes of his native northeastern Ohio. Educated at the Cleveland State Institute of Art, John Huntington Polytechnical Institute and Cleveland College, Lawton, as in all of his endeavors, distinguished himself academically. Today, Lawton's original paintings are included in many prestigious private and corporate collections. A list of his extensive corporate collections reads like the Fortune 500. His artwork is also widely exhibited in prestigious museums and galleries.

In 1989, the Butler Institute of American Art held a 25-year retrospective of his work. He has also exhibited at the Cleveland Art Museum and in the shows of the numerous professional art associations with which he is affiliated: American Watercolor Society; National Watercolor Society; Whiskey Painters of America; National Arts Club; Audubon Artists and the Salamagundi Club. He is perhaps best known for his paintings of rural Amish scenes. A purist, Lawton paints on imported handmade rag paper, soaking it in water before stretching it out onto a board to prohibit wrinkles in the paper. He rarely uses white paint in his watercolor paintings; any white is most likely the paper.

I am a great admirer of the Amish way of life. As long as I have been going to Amish country, I still see more things I want to paint. I have a particular fondness for winter scenes. Winter is a very meditative time of year. I like to paint it because I can see the structures of the trees instead of masses of green. Summer can be lush, and I do that, too, but the painting is quite different. - FL