Tripping with Jim Morrison and Other Friends: With an Introduction by Timothy Leary

About Michael Lawrence

Michael Lawrence was born in Los Angeles in 1943 to the Hollywood character actor Marc Lawrence and the screenwriter poet and novelist Fanya Foss. When Michael was 7 and his sister Toni 3 the family moved to Rome after his father had become embroiled in the Hollywood McCarthyism scandal. There Michael's childhood home became a magnet and natural melting point for Italy's own film community and the film-makers writers and actors of 1940s Hollywood passing through. This heady mix of Outsiderism defined by Felliniesque beauty and surrealism fame genius and the traumatically self-exiled emotionally distant father famous for playing baddies from Ziggy in Key Largo in the 1940s to several Bond villains provided a rich foundation for Michael's art. After returning to the US as a teenager Michael studied art at UCLA. There the formative years of dropping out and tripping with college friend Jim Morrison were followed by the award of a Huntington Hartford Fellowship. This along with the encouragement of his mentor the Cubist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz and his vibrant intellectual mother had Michael's future set as an artist and writer. His first article on LSD LSD Like Swift Death was published in the Los Angeles Free Press in 1966. The influence of Lipchitz is evident in Michael's art which brings together a unique direct line of influence from the two great Bohemian periods of the 20th Century: the 1920s Montparnasse group of Lipchitz Gris Picasso and Modigliani and the birth of the 1960s Alternative Culture which Michael experienced at such close quarters. After avoiding along with his friend Jim the very real threat of conscription to Vietnam another famous friend Roy Lichtenstein recommended Michael for a Krasner/ Pollock Grant describing his work as vibrant joyous and colourful. Michael didn't get the grant but by then he was on his way. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions in Los Angeles Palo Alto New York City Denver Madrid Stockholm and Greece. In London he is shown at the Hollywood Road Gallery Chelsea ( an amusing coincidence). For the past 22 years Michael has lived on the Greek island of Hydra an outpost of the art world painting sculpting writing and swimming. His works can be found in hundreds of private collections internationally including those of Oliver Stone Eileen Getty Wilding Moderna Museet LA County Museum of Art and the libraries of Bard College and MoMA New York. His artwork has appeared in several films including The Royal Hunt Of The Sun(1969) The Strange Exorcism of Lynn Hart/Pigs (1972/1984) and The Doors biopic directed by Oliver Stone (1991).