Dawson Dawson-Watson

Born in London, England, Dawson Dawson-Watson was a landscape, portrait, genre, marine, and mural painter and graphics artist who was the son of a popular English illustrator.  Returning to the United States, he taught from 1903 to 1904 at Byrdcliffe Colony, a center for the Artist and Crafts Movement in Woodstock, New York.  This period was followed by teaching for eleven years at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, serving as art director of a pageant in Brandesville, Missouri, and in 1918, serving a year as director of the San Antonio Art Guild.

In 1926, he settled permanently in San Antonio, encouraged by members of the San Antonio Art League, and he participated in many exhibitions, often winning prizes, including first place ($5,000) at the 1927 Edgar B. Davis Competition.  He also painted the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  Murals include Meditation in the Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, and The Open Book of Nature at Wichita High School in Kansas.