Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings To Fly

NORMAN

LEWIS Give Me Wings To Fly

NORMAN

LEWIS Give Me Wings To Fly

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023–NOVEMBER 4, 2023

MICHAEL ROSENFELD GALLERY NEW YORK, NY

A

rt is to me the expression of unconscious experiences common to all men, which have been strained through the artist’s own peculiar associations and use of his medium. In this sense, it becomes an activity of discovery, emotional, intellectual and technical, not only for the artist but for those who view his work. Art is a language in itself, embodying purely visual symbols which cannot properly be translated into words, musical notes or, in the case of painting, three-dimensional objects, and to attempt such is to be unable to admit the unique function of art or understand its language.”

—Nor man Lewis

“

10

Norman Lewis in his Harlem studio, February 5, 1960

© Arnold Newman Collection/Getty Images; Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY

12

[Fig.1] Too Much Aspiration, c.1953, gouache, ink, graphite and metallic paint on paper, 26 x 40 1/8 inches / 66 x 101.9 cm, signed

Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings To Fly

By Ruth Fine

Author’s note: This essay proposes philosophical, material, and

formal relationships among the works in Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings To Fly. While the intentionality of the works is diverse, the richness of Lewis’ layered subjects, which increases over the decades, provides the distinctiveness of his art, whether on paper, on canvas, or in his lesser-known prints. Echoing Lewis’ approach, this essay is not written in a linear manner, but with ideas bouncing off each other. Moving back and forth chronologically, with some works and ideas discussed in multiple sections of this essay, I hope to reflect the threads that weave together the complex body of work that comprises this exhibition.

A sense of touch Sandpaper is the substrate for the 1935 pastels of African sculptures,

the earliest drawings in this overview of the extraordinary works on paper by Norman Lewis (1909–1979). It seems clear that it was the rough surface rather than the sandy color that attracted him, given that in most of the known drawings, the color is at least partially hidden by a pastel field surrounding the African sculpture rendered there. Lewis’ skill as a draftsperson is evident in the richly detailed dimensionality he imparts to the African sculptures, while the sandpaper support adds significantly to the object-like character of the image-objects he was depicting. He selected his subjects from the more than 600 works included in the 1935 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition African Negro Art, organized by director Alfred H. Barr and curator James Johnson Sweeney. It included loans from public and private collections throughout the world. Given his profound interest in the art of the continent, Lewis must have been greatly excited to see this large array of works from all over Africa, the source of his uprooted culture, all the more so because he is recorded as having made, in 1932, an equally refined ink wash drawing of an African mask-like head shown in profile.

Lewis was granted permission to work in the MoMA galleries so that he could draw directly from the objects. Not all that he depicted are reproduced in the 1935 exhibition catalogue, and for those that are, the information given on Lewis’ drawings does not correspond to that accompanying Walker Evans’ important photographs, which were released in an edition of seventeen portfolios comprising 477 images and an accompanying index drawn from the MoMA’s catalogue. In some instances, for example, Bobbin Loom (1935), ([p.35] in the current exhibition of Lewis’ drawings), is identified on its verso as being used in weaving by the Baulé people of the Ivory Coast, whereas the 1935 MoMA catalogue lists its origin more generally as the “Upper Sassandra region” of Côte d’Ivoire (further research conducted for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of Evans’ photos in 2000 determined that the object was produced by the Guro peoples). Others of these drawings carry no identifying data that explains the artifacts’ specific cultural origin or function.

In all these pastel drawings, Lewis’ dramatic color patches are defined by light and shadow and beautifully articulate the distinctive individuality of each piece, giving them a sense of liveliness and humanity, including full figures and masks. Such subjects will be reflected in figurative aspects of Lewis’ later work, albeit more in his paintings than in his drawings. The pastels that Lewis created at MoMA vary in size, but in all of them Lewis’ palette was large, as imaginative as it was mimetic. White is used sparingly in many of them, while a color family that is important throughout the current exhibition is red—as in red-orange, red-brown, and in a purer form as well. Deliberate yet also ambiguous, the works on view in Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings to Fly hybridize abstraction and representation, drawing and painting, medium and pigmentation.

In late December 1944, Lewis again employed an extremely fine sandpaper as a ground for Untitled (Street Scene), [p.45], this time featuring multiple wet materials—gouache and ink—rather than dry,

13

friable pastel. The paper is identified on its verso as being manufactured by the Carborundum Company. Granular carborundum was and continues to be used in the process of lithography for resurfacing limestone slabs so they may accept a new image. Dox Thrash and other artists in the Philadelphia Works Progress Administration (WPA) print workshop evolved the carborundum-etching process, using the granular form to roughen a metal etching plate, which is then scraped and burnished, smoothing image areas and enabling the surface to print a range of grays and white. It seems likely that Lewis would have known about the work of the artists in Philadelphia, given his fervent curiosity about all developments in the contemporary art world.

14

The carborundum sheet used for Untitled (Street Scene) is rather large for this moment in Lewis’ career, measuring 22 x 28 inches. The drawing is among the most sensuous in this exhibition, with areas raked or combed to add parallel lines both vertical and horizontal throughout the composition. Figures, some clear, others somewhat hidden, may be discovered in the work as well, some of them suggestive of the “little people” motif that would enter Lewis’ world more fully around 1960 (discussed below). The dynamic sky likewise prefigures the blue landscapes, moonscapes, and seascapes of the artist’s last two decades.

Curiosity, conversation, and experimentation Norman Lewis’ works on paper are among his most experimental endeavors, in respect to both form and materiality. Most of them are independent works of art, rather than studies for more finished compositions. Exceptions may be found in some of Lewis’ sketchbook drawings, and a few others that are discussed below. They include Too Much Aspiration (c.1953), [Fig.1], which is directly associated with a canvas, and Untitled (1953), [p.75], which may be associated

with Lewis’ canvas Migrating Birds of the same year. Although this drawing looks nothing like the canvas, the collective movement of its disparate marks suggests a flight of birds—a subject of much interest to the artist—marking their affinity. Lewis possessed a general love of nature, which is reflected throughout his art. It is notable that he rarely rendered graphite underdrawings to establish a plan for his work. He did so in Too Much Aspiration, but most of it has been erased.

Lewis was immensely curious and took advantage of all learning-about-art-possibilities. He read voraciously, visited museums and galleries whenever possible, and studied ideas expounded by Vaclav Vytlacil (1892–1984), a founding member of American Abstract Artists who taught at Augusta Savage’s (1892–1962) Uptown Art Laboratory, where Lewis met him. Throughout the war and immediately after, Lewis encountered the work of the many European émigrés who had moved to the United States in the early- to mid1940s (some temporarily, some permanently), including modernists such as Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988). Importantly, Lewis was moving forward to demonstrate his belief that the struggle for racial justice in the United States was best fought through his actions—not in his art, where he was primarily preaching to the choir. As it turned out, he fought and commented in both arenas, but his activist stance in the world was more explicit than his reportage about racism in his art, especially in the works on paper.

The title for the present exhibition references Give Me Wings to Fly No! (1954) [p.77], another of Lewis’ spare, minimalist, sheets. The source of the title likely is Langston Hughes’ poem Dreams, first published in 1923, and referenced in many circumstances before and after Lewis drew energy from it. The poem reads:

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

ral, the group of Black American artists who came together in 1963, at the time of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Artist Richard Mayhew (b.1924), now in his nineties, continues to carry the banner for Spiral today.

That Lewis was part of many multi-racial groups as well as others specifically committed to Black artists’ concerns aligns with the fact that the Harlem of Lewis’ childhood was more white than Black, and he made friends among this diverse population of Irish, Italian, and Jewish European immigrants and their descendants. This diverse social practice remained true throughout his career, as did his desire for salon-like discussions. Lewis and Ouida Bramwell Williams, his wife at the end of his life, were gracious and hospitable, hosting frequent gatherings for their friends when they were living in SoHo, in a loft at 64 Grand Street, which he purchased in 1967—a radical move from Harlem, where he had lived and worked his entire life.

Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

In 1946, Lewis joined the Willard Gallery, one of the most highly respected exhibition spaces in New York. Other members included German-born Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), Japanese-born Gen’ichirō Inokuma (1902-1993), Morris Graves (1910-2001), Mark Tobey (18901976), and David Smith (1906-1965). Lewis remained part of Willard’s stable through 1965. Marian Willard was known to seek advanced art, embracing various approaches to abstraction, at a time when conservatism continued to dominate New York’s gallery scene, and even its museums. In Grace Glueck’s November 7, 1985, The New York Times obituary for the gallerist, the writer quotes Marian Willard Johnson as saying that she looked for “a personal statement as well as a vision of the universal” and for artists involved with “probing into the unconscious,” all of which implicitly describes Norman Lewis and his work.

From 1945 to about 1955, Lewis was partnered with psychologist Joan Murray (later Weissman), and the couple was reported to have hosted gatherings of artists, playwrights, and poets to engage in intellectual discourse. Conversation was clearly important to Lewis, who was a member of several artist groups and associations in addition to being a teacher. He frequented 306, the diverse group of creatives who gathered at the 306 West 141 Street studio of painter Charles Alston (1907–1977), furniture maker/dancer Addison “Add” Bates (1907-1990), and sculptor Henry Wilmer “Mike” Bannarn (1910– 1965). He was also a founding member and the first president of Spi-

In the late 1940s, Lewis was teaching abstract painting at the left-leaning Jefferson School for Social Sciences (an endeavor he would continue through 1949). He was exhibiting extensively in solo shows at Willard and group shows throughout the United States and internationally. At the end of the 1940s, he participated in “The Subjects of the Artists” meetings that preceded the more well-known dialogues among cutting-edge practitioners of abstraction, such as those that took place at The Club and Studio 35.

Space and atmosphere Lewis’ works on paper offer a rich array of subject matter, including a consideration of architectural forms. He left most of these untitled at the time they were created. Some were given titles when they went on exhibition or were sold. Others were given descriptive titles posthumously, by family members, curators, and dealers. Four archi-

15

16

tecturally oriented subjects created between 1944 and 1945 offer a chance to consider Lewis’ work in the order in which it was completed, given that the day and month they were made are documented on all four sheets. The drawing on carborundum paper discussed above, Untitled (Street Scene) (1944) [p.45], Untitled (1944) [p.43], Untitled (1945) [p.49], and Untitled (Architectural Abstraction) (1945) [p.47] are very different in impact and composition, but they all involve multi-media interactions in which none of the color-shapes are confined by tight boundaries. This unbound character remains true of Lewis’ color fields throughout his career. Windows and doors, railings and steps, fire escapes and other structural details inspired these compositions, two of which, Untitled (1944) [p.43] and Untitled (1945) [p.49], appear to have been painted on sheets from a high-quality block of rough-surface watercolor paper. In Untitled (Architectural Abstraction) (1945) [p.47], lines and fields have bled through the sheet to the verso, offering a less detailed, but no less fascinating mirror image. All four works may be based on the elegant buildings and shops on Harlem’s Striver’s Row, near Lewis’ 135 Street residence at the time. They reveal Lewis shifting from a representational mode to his initial explorations of abstraction. A seesawing back and forth between representation and abstraction—possibly a response to the violent and surreal situations generated by the war experience—was true for many of Lewis’ contemporaries at the close of World War II, including Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967), who was among Lewis’ close friends, and the west-coast-based Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993).

The four 1944–45 architectural subjects suggest the breadth of Lewis’ palette, as well as his use of both hue and tone to create visual space, with line being of equal importance to his expansive color forms. This approach would develop over time. Lewis’ ideas virtually always had roots in the sight-seen, but the suggestive nature of his art permits each viewer to embed their own visual experience to help comprehend the nature of the place depicted. Lewis not only

captured places, but also intangible atmospheric conditions equally open to his imaginative presentations and inventions.

Of the many benefits that Lewis’ association with Marian Willard brought, likely the most important asset was the opportunity to visit her country home in Locust Valley on the North Shore of Long Island.

There was a pond on the property, which was close to the beaches of Long Island Sound. This proximity to the ocean generated greater importance to landscape elements in Lewis’ art and atmospheric situations such as wind, fog, and the changing of seasons.

Allusions to coastal landscapes and atmospheres in Lewis’ art would later be inspired by trips to Greece, particularly Crete, in 1973, and Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, for the summer of 1976.

The trip to Greece was accomplished by means of a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist’s Fellowship—one of many awards Lewis was granted in the last decade of his life including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1975. In 1973, Lewis and his soon-to-be wife, Ouida, were visiting artist Jack Whitten (1939–2018) and his painter/art conservator wife, Mary, in Crete, where the Whittens had been spending time for some years. It was a hugely successful trip for Lewis, based on the number of paintings and drawings he reported completing during the three-month period he was there. One has a sense that, so long as Lewis had the time and a reasonable place to work, he rarely if ever had a block to his creativity.

Layers, strokes, and stitches There was always a lot going on in Lewis’ life, and this is reflected throughout his art in many ways. Lewis spoke frequently about how gambling—pool, poker, and the racetrack—enabled him to cover expenses throughout his life, starting with the building of his library. A

gambler’s instinct seems to be in play in much of his work: make a move and see what happens. This approach can likewise be attributed to his love for jazz music at its most improvisatory moments: do something, react to what’s done, and then react again.

The multiplicity of several trains of thought functioning virtually simultaneously is apparent in Lewis’ approach to media for one example. Often, Lewis used more than one drawing or painting medium in a single work. When he did adhere to a single material—most frequently black ink—he would employ a range of techniques for applying it. But whether he used pen and ink alone or ink with pen in some places and brush in others, tone would often play a subtle, but critical, compositional role. Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings To Fly reveals that it was in Lewis’ nature to make works on paper within any given period that featured diverse subjects in radically different formal situations.

Lewis’ use of multi-media methods remained with him throughout his career, and his choices varied greatly. They also changed over time, as did his methods of working with them. Lewis experimented with layering, rubbing, and dragging materials across the support, and offsetting them from one surface to another. He tried masking, using his fingers, employing whatever manipulative tools were nearby, and he experimented with sgraffito (a scratching method to create line). These manipulative processes are mentioned throughout this essay, but to describe two sgraffito-like examples, we gather Untitled (1975) [p.137] and Ode to Duke (1977) [p.143]. In the former, Lewis appears to have drawn a city-like community of marks, using the wooden back of a paintbrush stick, to create soft incisions into the field. In the latter, he used a sharp tool of some sort to dig into the field more fully, with circles and horizontally oriented lines. Together they shed light on how Lewis was able to achieve a range of effects using this method.

Drawing and painting on paper frequently provided a preview of what would subsequently develop in Lewis’ paintings on canvas. His paintings often integrate drawing media with oil paints, especially ink and pastel. The selection of works on paper included in this exhibition covers most aspects of Lewis’ visual concerns, enabling viewers to grasp the many strings that tie the works together, an oeuvre of great variety that likewise is linked across decades by a complex, comprehensive vision. Deep readings of Lewis’ art as he presents it require some sense of how these many subjects—and beautiful as well as horrifying experiences—impact his life, and thus his work.

Equally possible is a deep reading that is instigated by the important qualities of viewers’ lives. In either case, it must be understood that while the works in Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings To Fly may visually jump off their pages at a single glance, a more sustained examination is suggested to fully appreciate their value.

Lewis’ life was plagued by racist complications, and his anticipation of that situation is acknowledged in both his writings and his art.

Concerned with all the aesthetic issues of his white peers, Lewis incorporated into his art his intellectual and emotional responses to the experience of living in an essentially racially segregated environment. This social layering, along with emotional, intellectual, and aesthetic layering, was compounded by Lewis’ concerns with art, literature, philosophy, music, history, technology, and nature. As many who knew him have commented, all of these concerns were always on his mind, if not necessarily always in equal measure. Lewis’ insistence on addressing multiple issues simultaneously in his art was also the approach he took in his conversational interactions—revealed by breaks and shifts in subjects while talking with friends. This intellectual complexity is equally embedded in his art, which in all situations is functioning simultaneously on several levels.

The range of Lewis’ interests was reflected in his library, the contents of which were recorded in 1950 by his partner Joan Murray and

17

18

[Fig.2] Untitled, 1949, ink on paper, 19 7/8 x 24 inches / 50.5 x 61 cm, signed

[Fig.3] Untitled, 1949, ink on paper, 19 x 24 inches / 48.3 x 61 cm, signed

published in the catalogue for Kenkeleba Gallery’s 1989 exhibition Norman Lewis: From the Harlem Renaissance to Abstraction. Also published in that catalogue was Lewis’ Plan for Work, written in November of 1951. Race is not mentioned in it, as it had been in most previous and later proposals. After pointing out his eighteen years of painting and teaching experience, the overarching desire Lewis expresses in the 1951 project is to seek ways through his own work and through his observations of the works of others to establish and communicate: (1) “the basis for the growing conviction that art is taking a new and significant direction in America for the first time, and one indigenous and unique to its culture, and (2) to describe the qualities of this direction implicitly and explicitly.” His work from the period seeks to understand this situation.

finger to make many of the tonal marks. Lewis’ “little people” hold a consistent presence in his art, along with an ongoing interest in processions, including parades, carnivals, and perhaps funerals. This language is engaged in many works to which Lewis gave titles, as well as in many exhibited here as Untitled.

Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings To Fly includes several works from 1949 through 1954, a period by which the artist had shifted radically from his conception of drawing visualized in the 1935 depictions of African sculpture. While another two decades would pass before the word “minimalism” was incorporated into categorizations of visual art, it is perhaps the most accurate descriptor for many of Lewis’ works on paper starting in 1949. These include two drawings, Untitled (1949) [p.61] and Untitled (1949) [p.59], both of which affirm that his knowledge of calligraphy became central in works from this period. Lewis was searching for new ways to explore visual space, leaving marks as tracks that lead the viewer’s attention into, onto, or around the sheets.

Through his association with Willard, Lewis became increasingly aware of Asian art, including the study of calligraphy, which came about through his close friendship with gallery artist Inokuma as well as through Willard’s own interest in East Asian culture. Some calligraphic drawings are tied closely to the landscape, such as Untitled (Winter Branches) (c.1953) [p.69]. In other works, Lewis’ inspirational sources are not in any way jumping off the page to this viewer, though I feel certain they existed for the artist. I also feel certain that he wouldn’t care whether viewers grasp the sources of his inspiration.

What is most essential is for viewers to interact with these works— look closely at the marks, sense their homogeneity or heterogeneity, imagine the pressure of the artist’s hand when applying them, contemplate whether the artist’s wrist or shoulder was active in their development, and to notice how the marks sit on the sheets—with some filling them and others occupying a central position with clear fields surrounding them—and how individual marks interact with the openings between and among them. There is always a gracefulness to Lewis’ mark-making, a sensitivity to the scale of the touches of ink or other media and their relationship to every other touch or space on each sheet.

Some of the works on view from 1949–1954 suggest the possibility of figural sources, for example two images, Untitled (1949) [Fig.3] and Untitled (1949) [Fig.2], both of which are the earliest examples of Lewis’ “little people” included in this exhibition. In Untitled (1949) [Fig.2], the figures are drawn with a single pen that provides a homogeneous line. Also from 1949, Untitled [Fig.3], suggests the “little people” using a very different methodology, showing Lewis using his

By 1953, Lewis was working on larger sheets than in previous decades, including two ink drawings discussed here, both measuring 26 x 40 inches. The first is titled Winter Branches #3 [p.71], and it gives clues for the date and suggested title for the latter, Untitled (Winter Branches) (previously mentioned above). The approximate dates of many of Lewis’ drawings can be determined through their evident relationship to one or more works. This is often how they

19

are given parenthetical descriptive titles as well. The swirling, circular shapes in Untitled (Since War Began) (1949) [p.51], may be considered a precedent for the Seachange drawings of two decades later.

And The Wolf and Lamb Shall Feed Together (1949) [p.53], a biblical quotation from the Book of Isaiah in which a plea for peaceful coexistence mirrors a plea that one may assume was always on Lewis’ mind.

There is a subtle difference between the ink colors used for these drawings, the former reading as brown, the latter as black. Both are quiet works that bear a formal connection to Lewis’ canvas titled Harlem Gates, c.1950, by which year Lewis’ commitment to abstraction as a strong element in his art was firm.

20

Calligraphic drawings such as these often employ a relatively thin line that may be dragged in various directions by some kind of tool, not yet known, though a bamboo or other penpoint, a match, or a popsicle stick seems possible, as does a thin paintbrush or a finger wrapped in a rag. The tool varies from drawing to drawing as does the use of more than a single line. The diversity among these drawings may be seen by comparing Untitled (1950) [p.65], Winter Branches #3 (1953) [p.71], and Untitled (c. 1953) [p.73]. Ann Eden Gibson, writing for The Studio Museum of Harlem’s 1977 exhibition Norman Lewis: Black Paintings, 1946-1977 and discussing a related methodology in painting, references a “stitched” line in Lewis’ art. She connects this line to his experiences with sewing: when he worked for a presser in the early 1930s, as well as his later interest in needlepoint. To this list we may also add his several unique sewn puppets.

While Lewis’ approaches seem to be very different from each other, they remain connected in key ways. Exemplary in this respect are Too Much Aspiration (c.1953) [Fig.1] (closely related to a 1953 canvas of the same title), Give Me Wings to Fly No! (1954) [p.77] and Hide and Seek (1954) [p.83]. Too Much Aspiration is densely worked in gouache, ink, graphite, and metallic paint and suggests figural inspiration. By contrast, Give Me Wings to Fly No!, as noted earlier, is

among the more minimal of Lewis’ works on paper. Finally, Hide and Seek, an early work using oil on paper, introduces still another new methodology and medium that reinforce the importance of the material-form relationship for the artist.

The title Hide and Seek mimics the name of the children’s game, but more importantly, it reflects Lewis’ aesthetic concerns. Lewis used only a few colors—orange, blue, and black—which he combined with linear markings juxtaposed with softly edged forms that blend into the whitish field of the sheet. Together, these elements suggest movement in space that imply areas in front of and behind each other; areas that are hiding so as to be sought. This thinking is based on a certain intentionality evident in works to which Lewis assigned titles other than Untitled or simply a number or a date. The patches of color that grow from the linear structures in Hide and Seek bear a relationship to the pulled ink line discussed above.

Lewis’ interest in movement in space appears in two other works: Elemental Regions and Commuters. Elemental Regions (1954) [p.81] consists of three totemic thrusts rendered in a similar palette to that of Hide and Seek. While Elemental Regions shares with Hide and Seek a strong vertical orientation, interestingly, its totemic thrusts also echo the figures in the horizontally oriented Commuters (1954) [p.85]. In that work, vertical divisions throughout with tonal areas like those in Hide and Seek create space. The individual figures’ gestures (and, one imagines, their faces) are countered by the parade-like composition suggesting the boredom of daily commuter life. Some figures are carrying briefcases.

Substrate Just as Lewis employed a diverse range of media and techniques, he also worked with a wide variety of supports, determined in some

instances by what he could afford or was given to him by friends.

Most of them are of high quality. He would have learned the importance of paper quality for art preservation as a young artist involved with the Harlem Artists Guild and the Harlem Community Art Center, making art, exhibiting, and teaching with other artists funded by the WPA. One fascinating type of paper was given to Lewis by fellow Willard Gallery artist Charles Seliger (1926–2009), who worked for Commercial Decal Company and was able to take home sheets measuring 26 x 40 inches that had been discarded. Lewis used another type of paper consistently for many drawings from 1960 and 1961, and as late as 1964. These include Misty Morn (1960) [p.95], Untitled (1961) [p.105], Peep of Day (1961) [p.109], Peep of Morning (c.1961) [p.107], and III Figures (1964) [p.121].

Both Untitled and Peep of Morning are important examples of ambiguity in Lewis’ work. The former suggests an atmospheric inspiration, yet it is combined with linear and geometric spatial clues throughout. Its palette is likewise distinctively subtle, employing a range of grays, browns, and greens that suggests sky, land, or both.

The title III Figures seems unlikely for the singularly totemic icon that is the subject of this work. It is possible that the work is the third in a group of drawings of figure subjects, with Untitled (1964) [p.119] and Untitled (1964) [p.117] being the two others. Untitled (1964) [p.117] is a splendid example of Lewis’ use of masking to create strongly defined edges to his shapes.

By 1960, it was common for Lewis to use large papers of approximately 22 x 30 inches, up to 30 x 42 inches. The full sheet functions in important ways in his compositions. Some involve the entire field—pushing off edges, as in Night Orbit #3 (1960) [p.101], Cosmos (1960) [p.93], and Lights XI (1975) [p.131], which may be inspired by streetlights, moonlight, memories, or imagined lights, rendered on a rough sheet of paper whose texture enhances the work’s tonalities.

Lewis constructed shallow or deep space through his placement of

loosely bounded color shapes (for example in Untitled (1961) [p.97]) and following or highlighting specific linear forms to emphasize their linework, as in Untitled (1960) [p.103]. The ink lines vary as well, with some appearing to be meandering and others, such as in Frolic (c.1958) [p.87], worked in patches of parallel marks.

As was evident in Lewis’ 1935 drawings of African sculpture on sandpaper, paper surfaces themselves impart a sense of touch within an image: smooth or rough, from a watercolor block, on a handmade sheet with deckle edges, or sheets the laid lines of which are visible, as in two works from, 1961, Untitled (1961) [p.115] and Untitled (1961) [p.113]. In the 1961 drawings, the laid lines are horizontally visible whereas in the large, approximately 31 x 42 inch sheets used for Untitled (1968) [p.125] and Untitled (1969) [p.127], they run vertically through the drawings. Both of these later drawings may be read as architecture—a wall with hands reaching over it in Untitled (1968) [p.125]—as land, or as sea and sky in Untitled (1969) [p.127]. Alternately, as Michael Rosenfeld suggested during a conversation about the exhibition, they may be seen as torsos lying on their sides across the sheets. In either reading, Untitled (1969) [p.127] harkens back to Lewis’ more minimalist approach, here emphasizing color/tone shapes, rather than line. Among the quality papers used for drawings in this exhibition, identified by their watermarks, are Whatman and Strathmore Aquarius. Lewis’ practice of rubbing his materials into the sheets often accentuates the character of their surfaces.

Blues From approximately 1960 through the end of Lewis’ life, blue became a dominant color in his works on both paper and canvas. The range of these blues is extraordinary, from a turquoise hue to one that may be read almost as black. The moods these variations create is important to the reading of each work’s meaning. Figural refer-

21

ences appear in some of their titles—for example, III Figures (1964) [p.121], and Congregation (1978) [p.147]—or in the verticality or voluptuousness of their forms, as in the two Untitled works from 1964 [p.119 and p.117], which, along with III Figures, suggest nude women posing.

22

More substantively, many blue works refer to the sea. This reading is gleaned by their relationships with the many Seachange or Sea Change canvases from this late period in Lewis’ life. Circular wave-like forms are one marker of the Seachange subjects. But not all of Lewis’ Seachange-related drawings are blue, just as not all blue images relate to the sea. Circular and wave-like forms are evident in some of Lewis’ non-blue works from the 1970s. Those included here remain untitled, for example, Untitled (Seachange) [p.141], a violet-black sheet from 1975, and a brilliant red, black, and white drawing, Untitled [p.151] from 1978.

Lewis’ relationship with the sea was strong and multi-faceted. It included his Caribbean heritage, his father’s work as a stevedore, his own years in the merchant marines, plus the previously mentioned Locust Valley, Block Island, and Greek island associations. Blue also has many connotations beyond the sea and atmospheric conditions surrounding it. Of immense importance to the artist would have been the history of blues music, which is thought to have been born in the Mississippi Delta and since moved throughout the country and the world. The music’s importance to Black culture parallels that of jazz, and its associations within the culture were essential to Lewis. The blues is rooted in the many difficulties Black Americans faced, but also in the ways in which they countered them. African musical traditions such as call and response is part of its patterning, along with rhythms specific to the music’s form. Often associated with sadness, it is equally connected to the end of slavery, and a hopefulness or sense of humor that counters the “blues.” Likewise, its presence spread from rural to urban culture as the Black American population shifted north

during the Great Migration.

The earliest work in the exhibition focusing on blue dates to 1960, and Lewis continued to create such art through 1978. The structures of these drawings and paintings vary significantly. Some reference the swirling Seachange forms, but there are also quieter seascapes.

Still other blue works suggest processions, figures, and music, most obviously Ode to Duke (1977) [p.143], more because of its title than for any formal associations with jazz. The process of masking areas to create deliberate edges, while used earlier by Lewis, became especially important to his works from his final decades.

Black Immediately following a 1957 trip to Spain and North Africa and through the end of the 1960s, there were many important changes in Lewis’ life that impacted his work. In Spain, the police state was upsetting to him, though the time he spent at the Prado studying Goya, including the Spanish master’s deeply dramatic black paintings, was inspirational moving forward, as were the carnival processions he saw there; processions, too, remained important to his art.

Most works from the last twenty years of Lewis’ life are listed as oil on paper, or oil and pastel on paper. They tend to be heavily worked, with little paper showing. One is worked in a black, red, and green palette: Untitled (1974) [p.133]. While these color choices were unusual for Lewis, they are iconic of the Pan-African flag first associated with Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), a back-to-Africa movement which was based in Harlem starting in 1917. The flag, which features equal bands of red, black, and green, has since become symbolic, addressing and celebrating the liberation of Black people around the world. This drawing is an example of Lewis’ subtle references to an array of political and social

issues in his work.

Many of Lewis’ later paintings, but fewer of his drawings, overtly expound upon his political concerns. The melding of his graceful manner and politics was criticized by The New York Times critic Hilton Kramer in a January 25, 1969, review of 1969: Twelve Afro-American Artists at Lee Nordness Gallery. Kramer lamented the fact that Lewis combined “his customary pictorial elegance and an explicit social message. Somehow this elegance of form does not seem the proper vehicle for so direct an appeal to social conscience.” It seems doubtful that this would be a concern for critics today. Rather, it is this dichotomy that is part of Lewis’ unique contribution to twentieth-century art. In this respect, it is worth noting that the provenance listings of previous owners of the works in Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings To Fly include an impressive array of artists, private collectors, gallerists, and museum professionals.

Conclusion In summary, the importance of Norman Lewis’ works on paper is their experimentation with materiality and formal ideas; their lack of immediate consistency, our inability to silo them because they are without boundaries and beyond categorization. They are visually unique, intellectually demanding, and extremely beautiful in the deliberateness of their hybridity and ambiguity. His importance to younger generations is known through the exhibition spaces intended to show the art of young Black artists that he contributed to founding. It is also verified by his being included in the first exhibition held at the Just Above Midtown Gallery in 1974. The artist’s concern for his viewers, as well as himself, is profoundly embedded into the generosity by which Norman Lewis embraced, demanded, and believed in the power of art to alter the world intuitively and purposefully.

23

about the author

24

Ruth Fine, a practicing artist, taught studio art before being appointed the Curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in Jenkintown, PA, a division of the National Gallery of Art (NGA), in 1972. From 1980 to 2012, Fine was the NGA’s first Curator of both the Modern Prints and Drawings and the Special Projects in Modern Art departments in Washington, DC. There, Fine organized or coordinated more than two dozen exhibitions focusing on artists such as Romare Bearden, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, John Marin, and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as print-publishing workshops Gemini G.E.L., Graphicstudio USF, and Crown Point Press. With Mary Lee Corlett, she co-coordinated the catalogue raisonné of Roy Lichtenstein's prints (Hudson Hills Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1994, revised 2002) and, with Elizabeth Glassman, co-coordinated the Georgia O'Keeffe catalogue raisonné (Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1999), undertaken in collaboration with the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation.

Fine also conceived and coordinated The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States project (a disbursal program, website, and book published by the National Endowment of the Arts in 2008) following the collectors’ donations to the National Gallery.

Outside of her work at the NGA, Fine curated A Graphic Muse: Prints

by Contemporary Women (co-organized with Richard S. Field for Mount Holyoke College, 1987), an exhibition of Sam Gilliam’s prints at the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, Georgetown University, 2006, and has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues on several artists noted previously as well as Mel Bochner, Larry Day, Richard Diebenkorn, Wendy Edwards, Rick Lowe, Martin Puryear, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, James McNeill Whistler, Tyler Graphics, and The Brandywine Workshop and Archives, among other subjects. Her most recent exhibition, Frank Stewart’s Nexus: An American Photographer’s Journey, 1960s to the Present, co-curated with Fred Moten,

was on view at The Phillips Collection in the summer of 2023, and will be circulating to three additional venues. Notably, Fine was the curator of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ widely acclaimed exhibition, Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, the catalogue for which was awarded the College Art Association’s 2017 Alfred H. Barr Award for Museum Scholarship. In October 2023, she will receive the Archives of American Art’s Lawrence A. Fleischman Award for Scholarly Excellence in the Field of American Art History. Fine currently chairs the board of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and serves as a consultant for the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art African American Collecting Initiative.

r e f er e n ces

Among the numerous texts that reference Norman Lewis, many published by The Studio Museum in Harlem, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, and Bill Hodges Gallery, the following have been most useful to writing this essay: Campbell, Andrianna and Tetsuya Oshima. Norman Lewis: Looking East. New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2019. Exhibition catalogue.

Fine, Ruth. “Abstraction and Identity: Norman Lewis and the ‘Activity of Discovery.’” In The Image of the Black in Western Art, Vol. 5, Part 2, edited by David Bindman and Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., pages 179-196.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014.

Fine, Ruth, ed. Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis. University of California Press in association with The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015. Exhibition catalogue.

Fuller, Tarin. Norman W. Lewis: Works on Paper, 1935–1979. New York: Billy E. Hodges Gallery, 1998. Exhibition catalogue.

Ghent, Henri. “Oral History Interview with Norman Lewis, July 14, 1968,” transcript, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-norman-lewis-11465.

Gibson, Ann, Julian Euell, and Kellie Jones. Norman Lewis: From the Harlem Renaissance to Abstraction. New York: Kenkeleba Gallery, 1989. Exhibition catalogue.

Lax, Thomas Jean and Rocio Taboada, eds. Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces. New York: The Museum of Modern Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2023. Exhibition catalogue.

Salomon, Stephanie, ed. Norman Lewis: Black Paintings, 1946-1977.

New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1998. Exhibition catalogue.

Norman Lewis: Intuitive Markings, Works on Paper 1945-1975. New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 1999. Exhibition catalogue.

Norman Lewis: Abstract Expressionist Drawings, 1945-1978. New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2009. Exhibition catalogue.

25

NORMAN LEWIS Give Me Wings To Fly SEPTEMBER 8, 2023–NOVEMBER 4, 2023

28

30

Dan Mask, 1935 pastel on sandpaper, 18 1/8 x 12 1/2 inches / 46 x 31.8 cm, signed

32

Carved Bobbin (Guru), 1935 pastel on sandpaper, 14 x 8 3/4 inches / 35.6 x 22.2 cm, signed

34

Bobbin Loom, 1935 pastel on sandpaper, 14 x 8 inches / 35.6 x 20.3 cm, signed

36

Ivory Coast Baule, 1935 pastel on sandpaper, 22 x 14 1/4 inches / 55.9 x 36.2 cm, signed

38

Makonde Mask, 1935 pastel on sandpaper, 22 x 14 inches / 55.9 x 35.6 cm, signed

40

Untitled (Bangwa Queen), 1935 pastel on sandpaper, 22 x 15 3/8 inches / 55.9 x 39.1 cm, signed

42

Untitled, 1944 watercolor, gouache and ink on paper, 14 x 20 inches / 35.6 x 50.8 cm, signed

44

Untitled (Street Scene), 1944 gouache and ink on sandpaper, 22 x 28 inches / 55.9 x 71.1 cm, signed

46

Untitled (Architectural Abstraction), 1945 oil, watercolor and ink on paper, 17 x 21 1/4 inches / 43.2 x 54 cm, signed

48

Untitled, 1945 watercolor, gouache and ink on paper, 14 x 20 inches / 35.6 x 50.8 cm, signed

50

Untitled (Since War Began), 1949 ink and watercolor on paper, 19 x 24 inches / 48.3 x 61 cm, signed

52

The Wolf and Lamb Shall Feed Together, 1949 ink on paper, 19 x 24 inches / 48.3 x 61 cm, signed

54

Untitled, 1949 ink on paper, 19 7/8 x 24 inches / 50.5 x 61 cm, signed

56

Untitled, 1949 ink on paper, 19 x 24 inches / 48.3 x 61 cm, signed

58

Untitled, 1949 ink on paper, 19 x 24 inches / 48.3 x 61 cm, signed

60

Untitled, 1949 ink on paper, 19 x 23 7/8 inches / 48.3 x 60.6 cm, signed

62

Untitled, 1950 ink on paper, 19 x 23 3/4 inches / 48.3 x 60.3 cm, signed

64

Untitled, 1950 ink on paper, 19 x 24 inches / 48.3 x 61 cm, signed

66

Too Much Aspiration, c.1953 gouache, ink, graphite and metallic paint on paper, 26 x 40 1/8 inches / 66 x 101.9 cm, signed

68

Untitled (Winter Branches), c.1953 ink on paper, 26 x 40 inches / 66 x 101.6 cm, signed

70

Winter Branches #3, 1953 ink on paper, 26 x 40 inches / 66 x 101.6 cm, signed

72

Untitled, c.1953 ink and wash on paper, 18 1/2 x 23 1/4 inches / 47 x 59.1 cm, signed

74

Untitled, 1953 ink on paper, 24 x 19 inches / 61 x 48.3 cm, signed

76

Give Me Wings to Fly No!, 1954 ink on paper, 19 x 24 inches / 48.3 x 61 cm, signed

78

Untitled, c.1954 ink and gouache on paper, 19 x 23 7/8 inches / 48.3 x 60.6 cm, signed

80

Elemental Regions, 1954 oil and ink on paper, 24 x 19 1/4 inches / 61 x 48.9 cm, signed

82

Hide and Seek, 1954 oil on paper, 24 x 19 inches / 61 x 48.3 cm, signed

84

Commuters, 1954 oil and ink on paper, 18 3/8 x 37 3/8 inches / 46.7 x 94.9 cm, signed

86

Frolic, c.1958 oil and ink on paper, 17 3/4 x 24 inches / 45.1 x 61 cm, signed

88

Carnaval Totem, 1959 crayon, pastel and ink on paper, 24 x 17 3/4 inches / 61 x 45.1 cm, signed

90

Untitled, 1960 oil on paper, 26 1/8 x 40 inches / 66.4 x 101.6 cm, signed

92

Cosmos, 1960 oil on paper, 17 7/8 x 24 inches / 45.4 x 61 cm, signed

94

Misty Morn, 1960 oil on paper, 26 1/8 x 40 inches / 66.4 x 101.6 cm, signed

96

Untitled, 1961 oil, ink and graphite on paper, 19 x 26 inches / 48.3 x 66 cm, signed

98

Pursuing the Game, c.1959 oil and ink on paper, 17 3/4 x 24 inches / 45.1 x 61 cm, signed

100

Night Orbit #3, 1960 oil and ink on paper, 26 x 39 3/4 inches / 66 x 101 cm, signed

102

Untitled, 1960 oil and graphite on paper, 20 x 26 inches / 50.8 x 66 cm, signed

104

Untitled, 1961 oil on paper, 26 x 40 inches / 66 x 101.6 cm, signed

106

Peep of Morning, c.1961 oil on paper, 26 x 40 inches / 66 x 101.6 cm, signed

108

Peep of Day, 1961 oil on paper, 26 x 40 inches / 66 x 101.6 cm, signed

1 10

Untitled, 1960 oil on paper, 19 7/8 x 26 1/8 inches / 50.5 x 66.4 cm, signed

1 12

Untitled, 1961 oil on laid paper, 23 1/4 x 35 inches / 59.1 x 88.9 cm, signed

114

Untitled, 1961 oil on paper, 23 7/8 x 19 7/8 inches / 60.6 x 50.5 cm, signed

11 6

Untitled, 1964 oil on paper, 34 x 22 1/2 inches / 86.4 x 57.1 cm, signed

11 8

Untitled, 1964 oil on paper, 33 7/8 x 22 1/2 inches / 86 x 57.1 cm, signed

120

III Figures, 1964 oil on paper, 40 x 26 inches / 101.6 x 66 cm, signed

122

Untitled, 1964 oil on paper, 33 7/8 x 22 3/8 inches / 86 x 56.8 cm, signed

124

Untitled, 1968 oil on laid paper, 30 7/8 x 42 7/8 inches / 78.4 x 108.9 cm, signed

126

Untitled, 1969 oil on laid paper, 30 3/4 x 42 1/2 inches / 78.1 x 108 cm, signed

128

Untitled, 1974 oil and pastel on paper, 22 x 30 inches / 55.9 x 76.2 cm, signed

130

Lights XI, 1974 oil on paper, 30 x 22 inches / 76.2 x 55.9 cm, signed

132

Untitled, 1974 oil on paper, 23 x 29 inches / 58.4 x 73.7 cm, signed

134

Untitled, 1974 oil on paper, 22 x 30 inches / 55.9 x 76.2 cm, signed

136

Untitled, 1975 oil on paper, 22 1/2 x 30 inches / 57.1 x 76.2 cm, signed

138

Untitled (Seachange), 1975 oil on paper, 22 x 30 inches / 55.9 x 76.2 cm, signed

140

Untitled, 1975 oil on paper, 22 x 30 inches / 55.9 x 76.2 cm, signed

142

Ode to Duke, 1977 oil on paper, 22 x 30 inches / 55.9 x 76.2 cm, signed

144

Untitled, 1978 oil on paper, 29 3/4 x 41 5/8 inches / 75.6 x 105.7 cm, signed

146

Congregation, 1978 oil on paper, 29 5/8 x 41 3/8 inches / 75.2 x 105.1 cm, signed

148

Untitled, 1978 oil and pastel on paper, 29 1/2 x 41 1/2 inches / 74.9 x 105.4 cm, signed

150

Untitled, 1978 oil on paper, 29 5/8 x 41 1/2 inches / 75.2 x 105.4 cm, signed

Ch ecklis t o f t he Exh ib it io n

( A s th e y a ppea r i n th e c ata l o g ue )

p.31

Dan Mask, 1935 pastel on sandpaper 18 1/8 x 12 1/2 inches 46 x 31.8 cm signed

p.37

Ivory Coast Baule, 1935 pastel on sandpaper 22 x 14 1/4 inches 55.9 x 36.2 cm signed

p.43

Untitled, 1944 watercolor, gouache and ink on paper 14 x 20 inches 35.6 x 50.8 cm signed

p.33

Carved Bobbin (Guru), 1935 pastel on sandpaper 14 x 8 3/4 inches 35.6 x 22.2 cm signed

p.39

Makonde Mask, 1935 pastel on sandpaper 22 x 14 inches 55.9 x 35.6 cm signed

p.45

Untitled (Street Scene), 1944 gouache and ink on sandpaper 22 x 28 inches 55.9 x 71.1 cm signed

p.35

Bobbin Loom, 1935 pastel on sandpaper 14 x 8 inches 35.6 x 20.3 cm signed

p.41

Untitled (Bangwa Queen), 1935 pastel on sandpaper 22 x 15 3/8 inches 55.9 x 39.1 cm signed

p.47

Untitled (Architectural Abstraction), 1945 oil, watercolor and ink on paper 17 x 21 1/4 inches 43.2 x 54 cm signed

p.49

Untitled, 1945 watercolor, gouache and ink on paper 14 x 20 inches 35.6 x 50.8 cm signed

p.55

Untitled, 1949 ink on paper 19 7/8 x 24 inches 50.5 x 61 cm signed

p.61

Untitled, 1949 ink on paper 19 x 23 7/8 inches 48.3 x 60.6 cm signed

p.51

Untitled (Since War Began), 1949 ink and watercolor on paper 19 x 24 inches 48.3 x 61 cm signed

p.57

Untitled, 1949 signed ink on paper 19 x 24 inches 48.3 x 61 cm signed

p.63

Untitled, 1950 ink on paper 19 x 23 3/4 inches 48.3 x 60.3 cm signed

p.53

The Wolf and Lamb Shall Feed Together, 1949 ink on paper 19 x 24 inches 48.3 x 61 cm signed

p.59

Untitled, 1949 ink on paper 19 x 24 inches 48.3 x 61 cm signed

p.65

Untitled, 1950 ink on paper 19 x 24 inches 48.3 x 61 cm signed

p.67

Too Much Aspiration, c.1953 gouache, ink, graphite and metallic paint on paper 26 x 40 1/8 inches 66 x 101.9 cm signed

p.73

Untitled, c.1953 ink and wash on paper 19 x 24 inches 48.3 x 61 cm signed

p.79

Untitled, c.1954 ink and gouache on paper 19 x 23 7/8 inches 48.3 x 60.6 cm signed

p.69

Untitled (Winter Branches), c.1953 ink on paper 26 x 40 inches 66 x 101.6 cm signed

p.75

Untitled, 1953 ink on paper 24 x 19 inches 61 x 48.3 cm signed

p.81

Elemental Regions, 1954 oil and ink on paper 24 x 19 1/4 inches 61 x 48.9 cm signed

p.71

Winter Branches #3, 1953 ink on paper 26 x 40 inches 66 x 101.6 cm signed

p.77

Give Me Wings to Fly No!, 1954 ink on paper 19 x 24 inches 48.3 x 61 cm signed

p.83

Hide and Seek, 1954 oil on paper 24 x 19 inches 61 x 48.3 cm signed

p.85

Commuters, 1954 oil and ink on paper 19 1/4 x 38 1/2 inches 48.9 x 97.8 cm sheet size 18 3/8 x 37 3/8 inches 46.7 x 94.9 cm sight size signed

p.91

Untitled, 1960 oil on paper 26 1/8 x 40 inches 66.4 x 101.6 cm signed

p.97

Untitled, 1961 oil, ink and graphite on paper 19 x 26 inches 48.3 x 66 cm signed

p.87

Frolic, c.1958 oil and ink on paper 17 3/4 x 24 inches 45.1 x 61 cm signed

p.93

Cosmos, 1960 oil on paper 17 7/8 x 24 inches 45.4 x 61 cm signed

p.99

Pursuing the Game, c.1959 oil and ink on paper 17 3/4 x 24 inches 45.1 x 61 cm signed

p.89

Carnaval Totem, 1959 crayon, pastel and ink on paper 24 x 17 3/4 inches 61 x 45.1 cm signed

p.95

Misty Morn, 1960 oil on paper 26 1/8 x 40 inches 66.4 x 101.6 cm signed

p.101

Night Orbit #3, 1960 oil and ink on paper 26 x 39 3/4 inches 66 x 101 cm signed

p.103

Untitled, 1960 oil and graphite on paper 20 x 26 inches 50.8 x 66 cm signed

p.109

Peep of Day, 1961 oil on paper 26 x 40 inches 66 x 101.6 cm signed

p.115

Untitled, 1961 oil on paper 23 7/8 x 19 7/8 inches 60.6 x 50.5 cm signed

p.105

Untitled, 1961 oil on paper 26 x 40 inches 66 x 101.6 cm signed

p.111

Untitled, 1960 oil on paper 19 7/8 x 26 1/8 inches 50.5 x 66.4 cm signed

p.117

Untitled, 1964 oil on paper 34 x 22 1/2 inches 86.4 x 57.1 cm signed

p.107

Peep of Morning, c.1961 oil on paper 26 x 40 inches 66 x 101.6 cm signed

p.113

Untitled, 1961 oil on laid paper 23 1/4 x 35 inches 59.1 x 88.9 cm signed

p.119

Untitled, 1964 oil on paper 33 7/8 x 22 1/2 inches 86 x 57.1 cm signed

p.121

III Figures, 1964 oil on paper 40 x 26 inches 101.6 x 66 cm signed

p.127

Untitled, 1969 oil on laid paper 30 3/4 x 42 1/2 inches 78.1 x 108 cm signed

p.135

Untitled, 1974 oil on paper 22 x 30 inches 55.9 x 76.2 cm signed

p.123

Untitled, 1964 p.129 oil on paper 33 7/8 x 22 3/8 inches 86 x 56.8 cm signed

Untitled, 1974 oil and pastel on paper 22 x 30 inches 55.9 x 76.2 cm signed

p.137

Untitled, 1975 oil on paper 22 1/2 x 30 inches 57.1 x 76.2 cm signed

p.125

p.133 Untitled, 1968 oil on laid paper 30 7/8 x 42 7/8 inches 78.4 x 108.9 cm signed

Untitled, 1974 oil on paper 23 x 29 inches 58.4 x 73.7 cm signed

p.139

Untitled, 1975 oil on paper 22 x 30 inches 55.9 x 76.2 cm signed

p.141

Untitled, 1975 oil on paper 22 x 30 inches 55.9 x 76.2 cm signed

p.143

Ode to Duke, 1977 oil on paper 22 x 30 inches 55.9 x 76.2 cm signed

p.145

p.147

Untitled, 1978 oil on paper 29 3/4 x 41 5/8 inches 75.6 x 105.7 cm signed

p.149

Untitled, 1978 oil and pastel on paper 29 1/2 x 41 1/2 inches 74.9 x 105.4 cm signed

p.151 Congregation, 1978 oil on paper 29 5/8 x 41 3/8 inches 75.2 x 105.1 cm signed

Untitled, 1978 oil on paper 29 5/8 x 41 1/2 inches 75.2 x 105.4 cm signed

cover

Untitled (Seachange), 1975 oil on paper 22 x 30 inches 55.9 x 76.2 cm signed

Norman Lewis in his studio, New York, NY, c.1940s

Photographer unknown; Courtesy of the Estate of Norman Lewis

SELECTED p ubl ic COLLECTIONS Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR Art Galleries at Black Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Bermuda National Gallery, Hamilton, Bermuda Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH The Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, University of Maryland, College Park, MD Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, GA Hampton University Museum, Hampton University, Hampton, VA Harlem Art Collection, New York State Office of General Services, Albany, NY and New York, NY Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA Howard University Gallery of Art, Howard University, Washington, DC James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD John L. Warfield Center of African and African American Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX Library of Congress, Washington, DC Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles, CA

165

166

Menil Drawing Institute, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ North Carolina Central University Art Museum, North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York, NY Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY Tate Modern, London, England UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, CA Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, CT

Photographer unknown; Courtesy of the Estate of Norman Lewis

167

Norman Lewis, New York, NY, c.1940s

NORMAN LEWIS (1909–1979) “For many years, I, too, struggled single-mindedly to express social conflict through my painting. However, gradually I came to realize that certain things are true: The development of one’s aesthetic abilities suffers from such emphasis; the content of truly creative work must be inherently aesthetic or the work becomes merely another form of illustration; therefore, the goal of the artist must be aesthetic development, and in a universal sense, to make in his own way some contribution to culture.” 1

K 170

nown for his calligraphic abstract compositions, Norman Lewis (1909–1979) was a vital member of the first generation of abstract expressionists. He was the sole African American artist of his generation who became committed to issues of abstraction at the start of his career and continued to explore them throughout his lifetime. Lewis’ art derived energy from his vast interests in music – both classical and jazz - as well as nature, ancient ceremonial rituals, and the causes of social justice and equality central to the Civil Rights Movement.

A native of New York City, Norman Wilfred Lewis was born to St. Kitts immigrants Diana and Wilfred Lewis. The Lewis family lived in Harlem, and as a youth, Lewis held various jobs throughout his schooling but knew he wanted to be an artist from the age of ten. In 1929, Lewis found work as a seaman on a freighter and spent several years traveling throughout South America and the Caribbean, meeting local people and witnessing firsthand the poverty of Bolivia, Uruguay, Jamaica, and elsewhere. Upon his return to the United States, Lewis settled back in New York City.

In the early 1930s, Lewis met artist and educator Augusta Savage, who ran an arts school in Harlem and was involved with lobbying the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to hire more Black artists. From 1933 to 1935, he took classes at the Savage School of Arts and Crafts and attended Columbia University Teachers College. Lewis’s deep commitment to social and economic equality led him to join the Artists Union, which was organized to protect the rights of artists and workers. Lewis

was a regular at 306, a cultural center in Harlem on West 141 Street started by Charles Alston, that attracted musicians, writers and young artists, Lewis was a co-founder of the Harlem Artists Guild (HAG) in 1935. In 1936, he began working for the WPA’s Federal Arts Project, teaching classes. Lewis’ art at the time was grounded in social realism and focused on the lives and struggles of Black Americans, but in the 1940s, he began to explore abstraction.

While he remained active in the struggle for civil rights throughout his life, Lewis was skeptical about the power of art to effect change, explaining in a 1968 interview, “one of the things in my own self education, was the discouraging fact that painting pictures of protest didn’t bring about any change.”2 In 1945, Alain Locke included Lewis’ work in the exhibition The Negro Artist Comes of Age: A National Survey of Contemporary American Artists, and the following year, Lewis joined the growing number of New York abstract artists represented by Willard Gallery.

From his first solo show at Willard in 1949 to the mid-1950s, Lewis’ reputation steadily grew, and he developed his own individual style consisting of calligraphic, fluid forms suggesting groups of figures engaged in kinetic activity. Traveling in the same circles as prominent abstractionists, Lewis befriended Ad Reinhardt, Jackson Pollack, Charles Seliger, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning. In 1950, he was the only Black artist to participate in the famous closeddoor sessions defining abstract expressionism held at Studio 35, organized by de Kooning and Kline and moderated by Museum of Modern Art Director, Alfred J. Barr. A year later, MoMA included his

work in the exhibition Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America.

Throughout his career, Lewis pursued his unique artistic vision while also remaining committed to his political beliefs. He was a founding member of the Spiral Group, and from 1965 to 1971, he taught for HARYOU-ACT, Inc. (Harlem Youth in Action), an antipoverty program designed to encourage young men and women to stay in school. In 1969, Lewis joined Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Clifford Joseph, Roy DeCarava, Alice Neel, and others in picketing the infamous Harlem on My Mind show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. That same year, he, Bearden, and Ernest Crichlow co-founded Cinqué Gallery, dedicated to fostering the careers of emerging artists of color. Lewis was also a talented and generous educator and taught at the Greenwich Village Jefferson School and the Art Students League through the 1970s; his admiring pupils included Beverly Buchanan, Mary-Joan Bono, and Francis Snyder. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1972), a Mark Rothko Foundation Individual Artists Grant (1972), and a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1975), Lewis had his first retrospective exhibition in 1976 at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York.

Since his death in 1979, Lewis’ work has been celebrated in numerous exhibitions. In 1998, The Studio Museum in Harlem presented Norman Lewis: Black Paintings, 1946-1977. Significant museum group exhibitions include From the Margins: Lee Krasner and Norman Lewis (2014, curated

by Norman Kleeblatt) at The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; Postwar-Art between the Pacific and Atlantic, 1945-1965, (2016, curated by Katy Siegel and Okwui Enwezor) at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany; The

Color Line: African American Artists and the Civil Rights in the United States (2016, curated by Daniel Soutif) at Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; Abstract Expressionism, curated by David Anfam for the Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom (2016); Art of Rebellion: Black Art of the Civil Rights Movement at the Detroit Institute of Arts (2017); Blue Black, curated by Glenn Ligon for the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO (2017); and Ten Americans: After Paul Klee at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland and The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC (2017). His work was part of the major exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which was organized by the Tate Modern, London in 2017 and traveled to venues throughout the United States until 2020. In 2018, Lewis’ work was on view in the large-scale exhibition Histórias Afro-Atlânticas at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) and Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo, Brazil, as well as Peindre la nuit (Painting the Night) at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France and Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University, New York, NY. In 2019, Lewis was featured in “Cry Gold and See Black,” a curated selection by Julie Mehretu as part of Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; Afrocosmologies: American Reflections, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. In 2020, Lewis was included in Black Histories, Black Futures, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; and Degree

171

Zero: Drawing at Midcentury at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

172

In 2021, his work was featured in group exhibitions including In American Waters: The Sea in American Painting, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, Creating Community: Cinque Gallery Artists at the Art Students League of New York; and Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN.

Lewis: Looking East (2018). Pulse, Abstract Expressionist Drawings, and Looking East were each accompanied by catalogues featuring original scholarship. Given Lewis’s centrality to shaping the contours of abstract expressionism, his work was also essential to the gallery’s 2011 exhibition Abstract Expressionism: Reloading the Canon.

In 2015, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) organized Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, his first comprehensive museum overview. Curated by Ruth Fine, this landmark survey was accompanied by an award-winning monograph featuring new scholarship from Fine along with essays by David Acton, Andrianna Campbell, David C. Driskell, Jacqueline Francis, Helen M. Shannon and Jeffrey C. Stewart. On March 20, 2016, CBS Sunday Morning celebrated this exhibition with a feature anchored by correspondent Jim Axelrod.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery has championed the work of Norman Lewis for nearly thirty-five years; Lewis’ paintings and works on paper were an integral part of the gallery’s celebrated annual African American Art: 20th Century Masterworks series (1993-2003), and they have been the subject of five solo shows: Norman Lewis: Intuitive Markings, Works on Paper, 1945-1975 (1999), Norman Lewis: Abstract Expressionist Drawings, 1945-1978 (2009), Norman Lewis: Pulse, A Centennial Exhibition (2009), Norman Lewis: A Selection of Paintings & Drawings (2016), and Norman

Norman Lewis in his 1949 application for a Guggenheim Fellowship printed in Norman Lewis: From the Harlem Renaissance to Abstraction exh. cat. (New York: Kenkeleba Gallery, 1989), 63 2 Oral history interview with Norman Lewis, 1968 July 14, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/lewis68.htm, accessed February 2009 1

CREDITS Exhibition Coordinators halley k harrisburg Michael Rosenfeld Zachary Ross

Catalogue Design and Editors halley k harrisburg Francesca Leszynski Research Associates Charles Keiffer Kathleen Langjahr

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition Norman Lewis: Give Me Wings to Fly, on view at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery from September 7 to November 4, 2023.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC is the exclusive representative of the Estate of Norman Lewis and this exhibition has been organized with their cooperation. We are grateful for the partnership, support, and friendship of Tarin Fuller.

Essayist Ruth Fine

All works by Norman Lewis are © the Estate of Norman Lewis, unless otherwise noted.

Catalogue Photography Ryan Sobotka

Color Imaging and Processing Lupe Fraker Austin Quintana

All archival materials courtesy of the Estate of Norman Lewis Archive, unless otherwise noted. Photographers have been identified with their photographs when known.

Catalogue Rights and Reproduction Researcher

Nicole Martin

Essay Editor Jessica Scarlata Exhibition Event Coordinators Gianna Hur Eleanor Tennyson Exhibition Archivist

© Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC 100 Eleventh Avenue @ 19th Street New York, NY 10011 (212) 247-0082 michaelrosenfeldart.com

Cormac Fitzgerald

Exhibition Registrars Peter Emerick Nicholas Knapp Clare Watt

Exhibition Framer Ziello Frames Catalogue Typeface Avenir, Early Edition JNL, Neutra Display

On the cover: Untitled (Seachange), 1975 oil on paper, 22 x 30 inches / 55.9 x 76.2 cm, signed