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Norman Lewis, Painting Artist born

Norman Lewis

Norman Lewis was born on this date in 1909. He was a Black painter.

Norman Wilfred Lewis was born in Harlem, New York. He attended New York Vocational High School, where he studied commercial design. During the 1930s, he was inspired by the works of sculptor Augusta Savage and became part of Harlem’s “306 Group,” known for its address. Diego Rivera's The Wanderer 1933 influenced his works.

Lewis’s first exhibitions were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1934. From 1935 to 1938, he organized and taught art classes for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and was a founding member of the Harlem Artists Guild.

During the 1940s, Lewis moved to Manhattan, became a more abstract painter, and had the first nine exhibitions at the Willard Gallery. Lewis had shows at the Museum of Modern Art in 1951 and the Whitney Museum in 1958. His works during this period are Boccio (1957), Bonfire (1962), Players Four (1966), and the Seachange series (1976).

In 1969, Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, and he founded the Cinque Gallery, an equitable space for minority artists. Lewis was one of the most influential African American abstract expressionists, expanding the range of subjects and techniques available to artists of his generation. Norman Lewis died in 1979.

To be an Artist