Samella lewis artist biography

Samella Sanders Lewis (February 27, 1923 – May 27, 2022) was an.
Dr.
Artist and art historian Samella Lewis was renowned for her contributions to African American art and art history.

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Samella Lewis

Dr. Samella S. Lewis is a visual artist and pioneer in the field of art history. Among her many accomplishments are the creation of numerous gallery spaces and later a museum for African American artists, the publication of a series of scholarly books and journals on black art, and the production of a substantial body of artwork that has garnered international acclaim.

Lewis grew up in New Orleans in the 1920s and turned to art as a way to cope with life's harsh realities and with her own unique nature. As a young artist, she was drawn to subjects as diverse as police brutality against African Americans, comic books, and characters from her older sister's romance novels. She began her academic studies at Dillard University in New Orleans, where she met her eventual mentors Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White. After two years, she transferred to Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia, completing her degree in 1945. She went on to earn master's and doctorate degrees in art history from Ohio State University. In 1950, while writing her dissertati

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Samella Lewis, ‘godmother’ of Black art who helped preserve its history, dies at 99

The expression “Renaissance woman” is an overused one — often deployed in reference to anyone who might have a toe in more than one subject area. But when it came to Samella Lewis, it was true.

Lewis was an artist, an activist, a historian, an author, a curator, a professor, a gallerist, a collector and a beloved mentor who helped document and elevate work by Black artists for almost eight decades. A down-to-earth yet steely woman who helped integrate Black artists into the American canon, Lewis died of renal failure on Friday at a hospice in Torrance. She was 99.

The death was confirmed by her younger son, Claude Lewis.

Over the course of her career, she published important books on Black artists, including a monograph about one of her mentors, Elizabeth Catlett, a 20th century graphic artist and sculptor renowned for graceful, powerful portrayals of Black women. Lewis was also the force behind “Art: African American,” released in 1978 (and revised in 2003 as “African American Art and Artists

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Artist and art historian Samella Lewis is renowned for her contributions to African American art and art history. Born on February 27, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana, Lewis's heritage led her to view art as an essential expression of the community and its struggles.

Lewis began her art career as a student at Dillard University, where she was instructed by the African American sculptor Elizabeth Catlett. At one of her instructor's suggestions, Lewis transferred to Hampton Institute, where she earned her B.A. degree in art history in 1945. Lewis completed her graduate studies at the Ohio State University, earning her M.A. degree in 1948, and in 1951 she became the first African American woman to receive her doctorate in fine arts and art history. In order to publish Black Artists on Art (1969), Lewis founded the first African American-owned art publishing house, Contemporary Crafts.

From 1969 to 1984, Lewis worked as professor of art history at Scripps College in Claremont, California, becoming the college's first tenured African American professor. Lewis also helped to f