Artist John Lawrence is a photographer from Jackson, Mississippi. He currently teaches at LaGrange College in Georgia and is Director of the Lamar Dodd Art Center.
Lawrence attended Millsaps College in Jackson and earned a Bachelor’s degree from the Atlanta College of Art. He went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from Tulane University. He began working at LaGrange College in 1970.
Lawrence was the Visual Arts Director for the Atlanta Arts Festival in 1982. In 1984, he was the artist-in-residence in Cortona, Italy, with the University of Georgia. He taught photography in Cortona in 1994, 1999, and again in 2004. In 2000, he was a guest professor in Normandy, France, with the State University of West Georgia.
He has served on several boards, committees, panels, and as a juror for competitions throughout his life. Lawrence’s photographs have been published in numerous journals and publications including The Atlanta Journal and Constitution and Reader’s Digest.
Lawrence received the 2002 Award in Photography from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. He published a book of photographs of Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner, in 1994 (University of Mississippi Press). He published a book of photography on the architecture of Troup County in 1996. In 1999, the book Walls of Light was published, which features photographs of the work of Walter Anderson, taken by Lawrence.