Winter Branches #1
1953
Ink on paper
26 x 40”

Winter Branches #2
1953
Ink on paper
26 x 40”

Night Light
1956
Oil on canvas
29 5/8 x 58 5/8”

Norman Lewis (1909–1979) was born in Harlem and died in New York. He knew he wanted to become an artist at the age of 10 after seeing a Black woman making paintings on the street in his neighborhood. In school, he studied commercial design and drawing and by the early 1930s, he had begun working with local sculptor Augusta Savage. Lewis went on to teach at the Harlem Community Arts Center and by 1934, he was accepted into the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project. Because making a living as an artist (especially as a Black man in the mid-20th century) was challenging, he continued to drive a taxi to supplement his income until the late 1960s.

His painting style evolved over the years from social realism in the 1930s, through semi-representational Cubist and Surrealist-influenced works in the 1940s, culminating in the abstract style for which he would ultimately be most known. By the end of the 1940s, he was represented by the prestigious Marian Willard Gallery and was well connected with other working abstract artists of the day. In 1950, he participated in the history-making Artist’s Sessions at Studio 35 with other New York School artists including Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell. He was the only Black artist present.

Much of Lewis’ work shows abstracted crowds of figures. Art historians have variously interpreted these crowds as parades (like the West Indian parades in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s), as carnivals or festivals (from his travels in South America), or as protests. Lewis was an active participant in the 1963 Civil Rights Movement and participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as well as many other demonstrations.