Norman Lewis American, 1909-1979

“The artist has a great responsibility not only to use himself honestly and know his medium profoundly, but to realize that he must communicate unique experiences so that they become unquestionably possible for the viewer, which are not dependent upon inappropriate rationales, but emerge in symbols clearly of his own time, and basic to the aesthetics of future times.”

-Norman Lewis, c. 1950

"Lewis's art is difficult to describe in a summary fashion. Its development neither followed a linear path, nor ever arrived at a single signature style, as did the work of most of his better-known contemporaries, such as Barnett Newman (1905-1970) and Jackson Pollock (1912-1956). Rather, Lewis simultaneously explored multiple motifs in diverse media. As new subjects and formal ideas were added, earlier concern remained in play. Another reason the work is difficult to categorize is his emphatic distinction between artistic integrity and socio-political activism and the manner, which shifted over time, in which his belief in the separation of these two concerns is manifested in his art." - Ruth Fine, Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis

"The most consistent thread in Lewis's art from the 1930s through the 1970s is his concern with artistic process and his search for distinctive and expressive ways to investigate the materials and techniques of his profession: the spiritual in the material." - Ruth Fine, Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis