Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1933, Lawrence Fane lived and worked in New York City for many years. Early on he served as an apprentice to sculptor George Demetrios, and his assignments included working at a bronze foundry in Florence on the enlargement and casting of a monumental sculpture. Subsequently he was awarded the Rome Prize that allowed him to travel in Europe while living and working at the American Academy in Rome for three years. During that time he participated in an exhibition Arte Americana Contemporanea at the Palazzo Venezia. Other awards have included grants from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and membership in the National Academy of Design. After teaching briefly at the Rhode Island School of Design, he moved to New York in 1966, joining the art faculty of Queens College where he taught until 1996. He was a visiting critic and lecturer at many colleges and universities throughout the United States, including Boston University, The Yale School of Architecture, and Duke University. Fane died in New York City in 2008.