Martin Lewis White Monday
Mid-20th Century Prints
Paper
1970s Landscape Prints
Drypoint
People Also Browsed
1910s American Modern Figurative Prints
Etching, Aquatint
1920s American Modern Landscape Prints
Aquatint, Etching
1850s Impressionist Figurative Prints
Etching
1980s Pop Art Abstract Prints
Offset, Ballpoint Pen, Lithograph
1960s Surrealist Landscape Prints
Lithograph
19th Century American Modern Portrait Prints
Etching, Drypoint
20th Century Modern Black and White Photography
Silver Gelatin
1960s Surrealist Figurative Prints
Lithograph
Early 20th Century Modern Portrait Prints
Etching
Early 20th Century American Modern Landscape Prints
Etching, Drypoint
1970s Surrealist More Prints
Lithograph
1970s Surrealist More Prints
Lithograph
1970s Surrealist Prints and Multiples
Lithograph
20th Century American Modern Landscape Prints
Etching
1930s American Modern Figurative Prints
Drypoint, Etching
1930s American Realist Figurative Prints
Drypoint
Martin Lewis for sale on 1stDibs
Martin Lewis was born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia, on June 7th, 1881. He was the second of eight children and had a passion for drawing.
At the age of 15, Lewis left home and traveled in New South Wales, Australia, and in New Zealand, working as a pothole digger and a merchant seaman. He returned to Sydney and settled into a Bohemian community outside Sydney. Two of his drawings were published in the radical Sydney newspaper, The Bulletin. He studied with Julian Ashton at the Art Society's School in Sydney. Ashton was an English-born Australian artist and teacher known for his support of the Heidelberg School and for his influential art school in Sydney.
In 1900, Lewis left Australia for the United States. His first job was in San Francisco, painting stage decorations for William McKinley's presidential campaign of 1900. By 1909, Lewis was living in New York, where he found work in commercial illustration. His earliest known etching is dated 1915. However, the level of skill in this piece suggests he had been working in the medium for some time previously. It was during this period that he helped Edward Hopper learn the basics of etching.
In 1920, after the breakup of a romance, Lewis traveled to Japan, where for two years he drew and painted and studied Japanese art. The influence of Japanese prints is very evident in Lewis's prints after that period. In 1925, he returned to etching and produced most of his well-known works between 1925 and 1935. Lewis's first solo exhibition in 1929 was successful enough for him to give up commercial work and concentrate entirely on printmaking.
Lewis is most famous for his black and white prints, mostly of night scenes of non-tourist, real-life street scenes of New York City. During the Depression, however, he was forced to leave the city for four years between 1932 and 1936 and move to Newtown, Connecticut. His work from this period includes a number of rural, night-time, and winter landscape scenes in this area.
Lewis returned to Manhattan in 1936 and continued to etch and paint. He taught printmaking at the Art Students League of New York from 1944 until his retirement in 1952. Now he is considered one of the most important American printmakers of the twentieth century.
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(Biography provided by Allinson Gallery, Inc.)