By Gilbert Lewis
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Gilbert Lewis (b.1945). Influence of Red (male portrait), ca. 1990s. Oil on masonite panel, 16 x 20 inches. Signed upper right. Excellent condition. Measures 18 x 22 inches in custom gold leaf float frame. Original gallery labels affixed on verso.
Provenance: estate of the artist.
Artist statement:
Figurative art is a vital active process. The image has its own meaning; not storytelling, not just a picture of a face or a flower. Neither is it simply an exercise in the arrangement of shapes or colors. I want to translate my immediate impression into paint to present the image of an outstretched branch of flowers or a face – direct and simple.
My art reflects human concerns expressed symbolically, through fantasy and in a more concrete manner in the process of making the representation itself.
Art is my response to the image, the end result of an active process of exploration of the limits of the paint on paper within the confines of representation. The painting of a face is not just a face. My feelings are expressed through these images. My paintings speak to anyone in touch with their own humanity; to anyone else my art may be dismissed as “to personal”.
Biography:
Gilbert Braddy Lewis born September 25, 1945 in Hampton, Va. Son of David Blake Lewis (born in Atlanta, Ga.) and Gladys Louise Braddy [Lewis] (of Sanford, Fl.); brother of David Blake Lewis (Jr.) and Linda Lewis [Hunter]. The family resides at 3 South Linden Street, Hampton, Va.
1953 until 1962
“I studied from the age of seven, in Virginia, with two well-known Tidewater artists, Jean Craig and the late Allan Jones. The teaching methods of carefully observed studies from nature in charcoal or tempra paint, derived, of course, from the original French academic model, conveyed its impact on my early development; however, my eye and consciousness were mostly activated by the reproductions on the studio wall of works by Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo.” Gilbert Lewis in Contemporary Philadelphia Artists: A Juried Exhibition, (Philadelphia Museum of Art 2000), p. 145
1963-68
Studies at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Franklin Watkins, Hobson Pittman, Morris Blackburn, and Walter Stuempfig. While a student at PAFA he shares apartment [261 South 21st Street] with PAFA students, Jody Pinto and Barbara Sosson. In 1967 he receives PAFA’s: Bergman Prize in Painting; M. Herbert Syme Prize; and Samuel Cresson Memorial Travelling Scholarship. The latter award enables Lewis to travel to Europe during the summer of 1967 where he visits museums.
“In 1967, after having seen the Italian master’s work while on scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy, I was to realize my great influences and to discover the earlier Sienese masters whose clarity and energy still move me.” Gilbert Lewis in Contemporary Philadelphia Artists: A Juried Exhibition, (Philadelphia Museum of Art 2000), p. 145
1968
Horizontal painting [of an interior with a seated woman and cat by a large window] reproduced in black and white in school catalog for Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 1968-1969, p. 24. Other students whose works are reproduced include Clayton Anderson, Barkley...
Category
1990s Realist Arthur Royce Bradbury
