Stephen Lawlor - prints and biography
Symbolic Figurative Prints Inspired by Literature and Myth
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Screenprint
Year: 2025
ImageSize: 15 × 11.5
a contemplative figurative color etching featuring a solitary female figure rendered with delicate texture and atmospheric depth.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2013
ImageSize: 8.66 x 10.6 inches
Edition Size: 50
A woodland scene with pale birch trunks rising through diffused light. Light and shadow articulate the form with painterly subtlety, creating a contemplative visual space.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2025
ImageSize: 23.6 × 17.7
A theatrical female figure in elaborate red dress evoking Venetian costume. Light and shadow articulate the form with painterly subtlety, creating a contemplative visual space.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2025
ImageSize: 23.6 × 17.7
In Juana, Stephen Lawlor presents a solitary female figure set against a deep, atmospheric ground. The face is intentionally obscured, allowing gesture, posture, and costume to carry the emotional weight of the composition. Rich blacks and subtle tonal transitions demonstrate Lawlor’s mastery of mezzotint, a medium well suited to his interest in light emerging from darkness.
The work reflects his ongoing engagement with historical dress and timeless archetypes, rendered with technical precision and quiet intensity.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Screenprint
Year: 2025
ImageSize: 6.6 × 11.75
A luminous landscape with reflective water and dense foliage rendered in layered tonal fields.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Screenprint
Year: 2025
ImageSize: 6.6 × 11.75
A woodland landscape with filtered light through trees and a quiet reflective atmosphere.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Screenprint
Year: 2025
ImageSize: 6.6 × 11.75
A luminous landscape with reflective water and dense foliage rendered in layered tonal fields.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Silkscreen
Year: 2025
ImageSize: 11.5 × 7.9 inches
A striking contemporary silkscreen that merges medieval reference with a distinctly modern sensibility. Lawlor’s work often explores historical and mythic archetypes through a contemporary lens. In Tudor, the absence of facial detail invites interpretation, transforming the figure into an emblem rather than a portrait.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2010
ImageSize: 9.84 x 7.9 inches
Edition Size: 85
A dramatic canyon landscape with cascading light breaking through a narrow opening.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2009
ImageSize: 9.65 x 11.4
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2021
Image Size: 7.48 x 11.4 inches
Edition Size: 50
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2017
Image Size: 5.25 x 7.9 inches
Edition Size: 75
His early etchings were often landscapes combining elements from old Master paintings. Later he started to include portraits of women from those same centuries, such as characters from the Tudor and Medici royal courts, and also Japan’s Floating World.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Silkscreen
Year: 2022
ImageSize: 11.4 x 8.66 inches
Edition Size: 40
Video et Taceo is Latin, meaning: "I see and keep silent", which was the motto of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
His early etchings were often landscapes combining elements from old Master paintings. Later he started to include portraits of women from those same centuries, such as characters from the Tudor and Medici royal courts, and also Japan’s Floating world.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2009
Image Size: 4.3 x 3.54
A coastal landscape with a red sphere suspended over a muted shoreline. The composition emphasizes controlled tonal transitions, atmospheric depth, and a refined balance between presence and ambiguity.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2021
ImageSize: 7.9 x 7.9 inches
Edition Size: 65
A solitary female figure in profile wearing a muted red garment against shadowed space.His early etchings were often landscapes combining elements from old Master paintings. Later he started to include portraits of women from those same centuries, such as characters from the Tudor and Medici royal courts, and also Japan’s Floating World.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Etching
Year: 2021
ImageSize: 13 x 7.9
Edition Size: 50
His early etchings were often landscapes combining elements from old Master paintings. Later he started to include portraits of women from those same centuries, such as characters from the Tudor and Medici royal courts, and also Japan’s Floating world.
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2009
Image Size: 4.3 x 3.54
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Aquatint, Drypoint, Etching
Year: 2018
Image Size: 12 x 12 inches
Edition Size: 75
Stephen Lawlor
Biography
Stephen Lawlor (b. 1958, Dublin) is a leading Irish artist whose career spans painting, printmaking, and sculpture. An honours graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin (1980–1983), he began his career in the 1980s as a teacher at the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. During this time, he developed a visual language rooted in classical traditions, often centered on the figure of the horse. Through drawings, etchings, lithographs, and monotypes, he explored this subject with both technical rigor and expressive invention.
Over time, Lawlor broadened his practice, becoming recognized as both a master printer and an accomplished painter. His prints reveal a sustained dialogue with European art history, reimagining Renaissance and Baroque motifs through a contemporary lens. His paintings often share this sensibility, layering references from the past with a modern intensity. More recently, he has turned to bronze sculpture, expanding his exploration of form into three dimensions.
Lawlor’s career has been marked by national and international recognition. He has presented solo exhibitions in Ireland, England, and the United States, and participated in group exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. His work is held in private and public collections worldwide, spanning the United States, Australia, the Far East, and much of Europe.
Beyond his studio practice, Lawlor has been a vital force in the printmaking community. A member of Graphic Studio Dublin since 1984, he currently serves as Chairman of the organization, helping foster its role as a hub for fine art printmaking in Ireland. In 2016, he was elected an associate member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE) in London. That same year, he became a founding member of the International Academic Printmaking Alliance (IAPA) in Beijing, furthering international collaboration in the graphic arts.
Balancing tradition and innovation, Stephen Lawlor continues to evolve as a painter, printmaker, and sculptor, affirming his position as one of Ireland’s most versatile contemporary artists.
Related artists engaging with art historical tradition and figurative symbolism:
By: Stephen Lawlor
Medium: Silkscreen
Year: 2022
ImageSize: 11.24 × 9.8 inches
Edition Size: 38
In Rose Without a Thorn, Stephen Lawlor reimagines the tradition of Renaissance portraiture through a contemporary lens. A faceless female figure emerges from deep shadows, her elegant costume and glowing form creating a compelling image of beauty, silence, and introspection.