Aletta M. Lewis b. 1904

  • Artist (Draughtsman),
  • Artist (Painter)
painter, illustrator and writer, born in England,1904. Lewis spent her most exciting period as a young artist exhibiting in Sydney.
You are viewing the version of bio from Nov. 17, 2014, 12:26 a.m. , as edited by CaroWhitePz (needs approval).
Go to current record
This record needs moderation
Name
Aletta M. Lewis
Gender
Female
Roles
  • Artist (Draughtsman)
  • Artist (Painter)
Other Occupation
  • teaching (ANZSIC code: P)
  • writer (ANZSIC code: 9002)
Birth date
1904
Birth place
Orpington, Kent, England, UK
Active Period
  • 1927 - 1931
Arrival
  • 1927
Residence
  • c.1927 - c.1928 Merryday, Austinmer, Wollongong, New South Wales
  • 1927 - 1930 Sydney, New South Wales
  • c.1930 - c.1990 London, England, UK
  • c.1 February 1929 - c.1 September 1929 American Samoa
Training
  • c.1925 - c.1926 Slade School, London, England, UK
  • Bedales, Hampshire, England, UK
Cultural Heritage
  • English
Languages
  • English
Initial Record Data Source
  • Heritage with additions

Difference between this version and previous

Field This Version Previous Version
Record status needs approval moderator approved
Date modified Nov. 17, 2014, 12:26 a.m. Oct. 19, 2011, 12:59 p.m.
Field Changes
Biography
Contributors
  • 3603
Date modified Nov. 17, 2014, 12:26 a.m. Jan. 1, 1992, midnight
painter, illustrator and writer, was born in Orpington, Kent, on 5 July 1904, daughter of Guilford Lewis, solicitor. She was educated at Bedales, Hampshire, and trained at the Slade School, London, where she held a scholarship and, while still in England, she exhibited at the New English Art Club. Lewis spent her most exciting period as a young artist in Australia, coming to work in Sydney in 1927 at the age of twenty-three. She immediately became closely involved with Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School, teaching there three days a week until 1929. Her modern art training in London reflected in the linear and design quality of her work influenced the local art scene, both through her teaching and as a regular exhibitor in leading shows. She took part in the Second Exhibition of Modern Art at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1927 - a Contemporary Group show - and exhibited portraits and landscapes with the NSW Society of Artists in 1927-29 and two portraits in the Archibald Prize for1928.


John Young, director of the Macquarie Galleries, gave Lewis a solo show in May 1928 and encouraged her to paint at the Austinmer Cottage where her close friend *Adelaide Perry* worked (as did Roland Wakelin). In 1929 Young suggested that Lewis travel to the Pacific Islands to fulfil her desire 'to paint brown people' and arranged four sponsors, each to give £25 to fund the trip. During her six-month sojourn in American Samoa Lewis worked prolifically, depicting the people - whom she greatly admired - their life and customs. She recorded her happy and productive time there in an illustrated book, _They Call Them Savages_ (London, 1938). Lewis's drawings and oils of Samoan natives, exhibited in a solo show at the Macquarie Galleries in October 1929, received laudatory reviews and her work came to represent the spirit of modern art in Sydney. Her Samoan paintings and Sydney portraits were reproduced in _Art in Australia_ in 1928-30.


Lewis left Sydney in December 1929 for a painting trip to Assam then returned to London in 1930. She later travelled to Ceylon. In 1931 she held a successful joint show with Roy de Maistre in Paris. She married an English sculptor, Denis Dunlop, some years after returning to London and, after the birth of a child in 1942, abandoned her art career.¶
 due to ill health. She died in London in 1956. ¶

Lewis's work has largely disappeared. An excellent, undated oil on board cubist street scene was sold by Sotheby's at Sydney on 16 August 1999 (cat. 221) for $5175.00. Her most notorious painting, _Hot Night,_ exhibited in 1927 with the Society of Artists, which _Home_ described as 'the sensation of the exhibition', is known only from a black-and-white photograph. There are also paintings in the UK: Bexhill Beach (in Bromley Gallery), St Dominic's Priory, portrait of the artist's daughter,and a drawing of Sinanene in private collections.