David Lawrence founded David Lawrence Editions which later became David Lawrence Gallery in 1982 in the backroom of his mother's house while a student at CSUN in Los Angeles. He was initially involved in the ownership of another small company that had the rights to distribute one of the all time best selling posters, "Ferrari Decisions, Decisions". After four years in the fine art poster business and exhibiting at the Art Expo in New York, Lawrence closed the business and spent the next year doing independent research at the UCLA Art LIbrary three to five nights a week. About this time Lawrence took over half the top floor of the Writers and Artists Building in the heart of Beverly Hills on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Blvd South. Lawrence founded the David Lawrence Gallery in the Beverly Hills at the gallery space that would be the location of the gallery for over 25 years. The gallery conducted hundreds of gallery exhibitions showcasing the prints and sculpture multiples they would publish as well as exhibitions of many international and Los Angeles artists.
THE MOST IMPORTANT AND COMPREHENSIVE EXHIBITION OF R. CRUMB ARTWORK EVER, TOOK PLACE IN THIS GALLERY WITH OVER FOUR HUNDRED FRAMED ORIGINAL ARTWORKS ON DISPLAY.
Lawrence had never bought or sold a cartoon prior to late 2024 when he purchased out the entire estate of Marty Murphy from the artists family. The gallery acquired a massive Playboy trove of original published cartoons, preliminaries, concept cartoons and vast archive of material associated with the artist's forty-six year collaboration with Playboy Magazine. Fresh off the acquisition of the Marty Murphy Estate Collection, the gallery acquired the entire remainder of the Fling Magazine Artwork Archive in 2025. The Fling Magazine archive had has an extensive amount of original vintage artworks and cartoons produced in the magazine from 1957 to 1995. Fling had a thirty-eight year history of publications with over 350 magazines. We are excited to be listing a few every day on CAF but feel free to reach out to us for your specific wants.
