Vale: Lawrence Daws

Tue 21 Oct 2025

Lawrence Daws (25 December 1927– 8 October 2025) was an important figure in Australian art who forged a celebrated career over seven decades. He depicted diverse subjects — snake handlers, nudes, domestic interiors and landscapes — in enigmatic paintings that reveal his interest in psychology and self-discovery. Daws’s journeys into the unconscious were inspired by esoteric interests: he was fascinated by the psychoanalytic philosophies of Carl Jung, Taoism, the I Ching (Yijing) and the Tarot. Nevertheless, at the heart of his practice was an abiding interest in exploring the properties of paint and its expressive potential.

Lawrence Daws in his studio in Beerwah, Queensland, 2005

Daws was born in Adelaide in 1927 and raised in an art-loving family. As a teenager, he met renowned landscape painter Hans Heysen, who encouraged him to pursue art. Having first trained as an engineer, Daws began work as a geologist in New Guinea; it was there that he decided to become an artist. In 1950, he attended Melbourne’s National Gallery Art School (now the Victorian College of the Arts) and was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to travel to Italy, where he lived in 1958–59. The experience inspired a succession of trips through Europe, India, Mexico and the United States. While living in London through the 1960s, Daws began reading about Carl Jung and developed an interest in his ideas on symbolism and the collective unconscious.

Owl Creek III 1979-80

In 1970, Daws returned to Australia, living first on Bribie Island — where he befriended resident painter Ian Fairweather; then moving in 1974 to a property called ‘Owl Creek’, near the Glass House Mountains. The view of the mountains from his backyard fascinated him and he featured their monolithic forms in haunting paintings that brought him critical acclaim. Owl Creek III 1979–80 (illustrated) is one such example, purchased for the Collection in 1980: his depiction of the area’s undulating terrain exerts an eerie presence in the background, while a birdcage suspended from an awning suggests domesticity. By contrast, the inscrutable geometric forms in the foreground allude to a viewing platform — a device used by Chinese painters of the Song dynasty to serve as a visual departure point.

Appointed to the Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees in 1977, Daws was later awarded honorary doctorates by Griffith University (1992) and the University of the Sunshine Coast (2000). His exceptional ability to capture the psychological resonance of the landscapes he encountered, and his contribution to the cultural and intellectual life of Queensland, form his ongoing legacy.

Interior – figure with flowers 1977

Mandala VI 1962

Owl Creek III 1979-80 is currently on display in the Australian Art Collection, Queensland Art Gallery, Galleries 10, 11, 12 & 13 (Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries).

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
Brisbane, Australia