Don Lawrence was born in the London suburb of East Sheen. He was the third child of Nellie and Herbert Lawrence. He had a two-year-older sister, Pamela, and a four-year-older brother, Raymond. After his military service he studied at the Borough Polytechnic art academy, where he received a thorough education and also met his first wife, Julia Wilson. In the last year of his education, he met Don Doug Marler, an ex-student who drew comics for a small publishing house. After this meeting, Don Lawrence immediately knew what he wanted to become: a comic artist. He left the academy without a degree and went to work at the Gower Street Studios. In 1954, Don Lawrence married Julia Wilson. They had five children. They divorced in 1978, after which Lawrence married Elisabeth Clunies-Ross in 1979. After his studies, Lawrence worked for Mick Anglo of the Gower Street Studios and illustrated the science fiction comic Marvelman with Norman Light and Dennis Gifford. From 1954 to 1958 he illustrated Davy Crocket, Daniel Boone and was responsible for the spin-off Marvelman Family. Ted Holmes of Amalgamated Press was surprised at the progress of Don Lawrence's artwork and offered him a job. For Amalgamated Press, Lawrence mainly illustrated western comics. His most famous series from that time is Wells Fargo. In the late 1950s, Don Lawrence is represented by the Temple Art Agency. As a result, he worked on various projects, such as Olac the Gladiator (the experiences of a gladiator in roman imperial times) and Halmar the son of the Sea Wolf (the adventures of a young Viking).

Trigan Empire; In 1965, Don Lawrence received an offer from publishing house IPC to illustrate, based on the stories by Mike Butterworth "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire." The Trigan Empire was the big breakthrough for Don Lawrence. For ten years he illustrated the adventures of Trigo, Janno and Perik fairly anonymously. At a London comic fair in 1976, however, he found out that his work was world-famous. Lawrence asked his publisher for a hefty salary increase. This led to a serious conflict after which he resigned. In total, Don Lawrence illustrated 46 episodes of the comic.

Storm; through his agency, Don Lawrence came into contact with comic magazine Eppo. Together with Martin Lodewijk (known from Agent 327 and then editor of Eppo), Don Lawrence was allowed to set up a new science fiction series. The first attempt was rejected by Eppo's editors, so Martin Lodewijk and Don Lawrence went back to work. The result - with a story by by Philip Dunn - was Storm, the first episode of which can be read in issue 11 of Eppo from 1977. Don Lawrence has worked on Storm for over 25 years and has illustrated a total of 22 volumes. The rejected part was later added to the series as part 0 (the special "Commandant Grek"). For one story (""De sluimerende dood") he wrote the story himself. In addition to Martin Lodewijk and Philip Dunn, Dick Matena and Kelvin Gosnell have also written various volumes.

After the death of Don Lawrence, the series stopped, only to be revived in 2007, again with Martin
Lodewijk as writer and Romano Molenaar and Jorg de Vos as artists. In the intervening period, a new series was published: “Kronieken van de tussentijd”. This series consists of three parts. In addition to comics, Don Lawrence also made illustrations for various English and Dutch magazines, including Essef, Sjors, Eppo and Kijk.
In 1995, Don Lawrence lost vision in his right eye. Nevertheless, he continued to work on Storm, but after "De Armageddon Reiziger" he retired. Don Lawrence died of severe pneumonia on December 29, 2003.

At first, Don Lawrence, like most British cartoonists, drew tight line work in black and white. Later he also started drawing in half-tone (addition of shades of grey). Much later he started working in colour; with The Trigan Empire, his way of working would become his trademark. He painted the pages with gouache and water on thick illustration cardboard, directly over the pencil drawing. Although this is a time-consuming process, he managed to produce two to three pages a week. With Storm, the layout of the pages slowly changed from the British style, with a large picture dominating the page, to the European style, where the page is more evenly constructed.

The offered lot is a museum masterpiece; this is a gouache on board that Don Lawrence made in 1993 for the cover of the Trigan Empire volume 3; "Stad onder vuur". Also see the image of the publication on the last scan (not included in this lot). A beautiful cover painting featuring everything The Trigan Empire stands for; tension, action, captured in beautiful colours. The painting is completely authentic, has never seen daylight and is therefore 100% as Don Lawrence made it 30 years ago. The beautiful painting will be packaged with care and shipped by registered mail on 6 August.