Norman Lewis Abstract Expressionism

Norman Lewis “… One of the discouraging things in my own self-education, was the fact that painting pictures didn’t bring about any social change.” – Norman Lewis Norman Lewis, leading African American artist and prominent member of the Abstract Expressionism movement, was born on July 23, 1909, in Harlem, New York. At an early age, Mr. Lewis became keenly aware of racial tension as he and his parents resided in a mostly Italian and Jewish neighborhood. At the age of nine, Norman Lewis discovered that he wanted to be an artist, and in high school, he began to study drawing and commercial design. When Lewis turned 20, however, he became a seaman on a freighter. He spent several years traveling through South America and the Caribbean. Eventually, Norman Lewis returned home to Harlem where he began his initial career as an artist. From 1933 to 1935, Lewis enrolled in Savage School of Arts and Crafts located in Harlem, New York. Also in the early 1930s, Norman Lewis studied African art in numerous museums including the Museum
Thus, he became active in the New York School and Abstract Expressionism. New York’s Willard Galley represented Lewis and hosted his first solo exhibition in 1949, and in result he went on to have nine solo shows within a decade at the Galley. The works exhibited included his signature calligraphic line, suggestive of figural groups engage in frenetic move and energy. Because his art sales alone didn’t support Lewis and his family, he concurrently taught alongside friend and ally, Reinhardt. In 1950, Lewis was the sole African-American participant in the famous, closed-door symposium at Studio 35 set to defining abstract art. The following year, MoMA included Lewis's work in the influential exhibition Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America. While a member of this coveted inner circle of leading abstract artists, because of his race Lewis was paradoxically an