The death of Samella Lewis—artist, curator, institution builder, and scholar—on May 27, 2022, at age ninety-nine, ended a major chapter in the field of African American art. February 27 marks her one hundredth birthday.
from author's collection
"Black Artists on Art" by Samella Lewis
Lewis’s teachings, writings, curatorial efforts, film productions, political activism, and other activities reflected her tireless commitment to Black artists. Her work inspired generations of scholars to document the contributions of Black artists to American and international art history and visual culture. Lewis’s books, especially the two-volume 1969 Black Artists on Art, with fellow artist Ruth Waddy, and 1979’s Art: African American (later republished as African American Art and Artists by University of California Press in 2003) helped establish and institutionalize the field of African American Art. It was among the few comprehensive works on the whole history and tradition of Black visual artists.
Her journal, Black Art: An International Quarterly, later renamed as the International Review of African American Art, further solidified both the field and her scholarly reputation. Black Artists on Art became an iconic publication, with scores of Black artists contributing. Some of their statements were provocative, challenging the white art establishment for its exclusionary practices.
Born in New Orleans in 1923, Samella Lewis experienced the indignities of Jim Crow early in her life. She began her formal art studies at the historically Black Dillard University in New Orleans. There she met artist Elizabeth Catlett, which proved life-altering. Catlett had a strongly leftist worldview and Lewis often cited her as a primary influence. She noted that Catlett regularly brought leading figures like Paul Robeson into her classroom, allowing the young Lewis to incorporate a radical vision that later infused both her academic and creative efforts throughout her long life.
Lewis later earned a Ph.D. at Ohio State University, and embarked on an extensive teaching career that eventually landed her in Los Angeles and at nearby Scripps College. That became the site of her most productive work and propelled her to become the dominant force in African American art history. She empowered Black scholars, artists, students, and people in general to see African American visual production as an integral feature of American art history.
Lewis produced her major works on Black art through her own publishing company, Contemporary Crafts. She briefly worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art but resigned after realizing that it would not change quickly enough; she also joined in protests against that institution for its policies of racial exclusion. Moreover, she also started various commercial art galleries that showcased some of the key figures of regional and national African American art. In 1975, Lewis founded the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles which became a major institution featuring local and national Black artists and sponsoring symposia and other programs. It remains a dynamic institution to the present day.
Lewis’s personal gallery, known popularly as “The Gallery,” was a vibrant venue where local Black artists congregated and exhibited their works until 1979. A major focus was the production and sale of inexpensive original prints, encouraging African Americans and other laypersons to begin collecting art. Among older African American artists in the Los Angeles area, The Gallery remains legendary as a key historical step in the institution building that now sustains this dynamic artistic tradition in the region.
Of all of her stellar contributions, her art historical works are likely to remain one of the most durable. She was one of the few––possibly the last––art historians to research and write an encyclopedic work on the range of African American artists. There have been a few others, including her predecessor, James Porter, a Howard University art historian and artist who wrote Modern Negro Art in 1943, the first comprehensive survey of African American art. Others include Elsa Honig Fine (The Afro-American Artist, 1976); Richard Powell (Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century, 1997); and Sharon Patton (African-American Art, 1998). Another key comprehensive contribution was the 1997 St. James Encyclopedia of Black Artists, edited by Thomas Riggs. It remains unlikely (but certainly not impossible) that any additional massive works along this line will be written. The enormous proliferation of Black artists throughout the country in recent decades make such a task extremely daunting.
While many other scholars have produced outstanding works on important features of this vibrant visual arts tradition, Samella Lewis set the modern tone for more limited encyclopedic works on specific genres or themes––photography, murals, regions like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Scholars like Kellie Jones and others have concentrated on the remarkable community of African American artists in that region, including Samella Lewis, celebrating her work both as an art historian and visual artist.
Many scholars have also produced impressive works on the Harlem Renaissance, Black assemblage, the art of the Black Power Movement, Black abstractionism, and other topics. And yet others have focused on scores, perhaps hundreds, of individual Black artists. The results are prolific. What is common, in an extraordinary number of these cases, is a regular and heartfelt acknowledgement to Samella Lewis for her pioneering efforts to establish this field as a regular focus of art historical inquiry.
Finally, Samella Lewis herself wrote books about her close artist friends like Elizabeth Catlett and Richmond Barthé. Equally important, she inspired others to write about such friends. Notable examples include Melanie Herzog’s works on Elizabeth Catlett and Ellen Harkins Wheat’s works on Jacob Lawrence. All of these have elevated African American art to the center of both academic and public consciousness. Undoubtedly, Samella Lewis’s legacy has dramatically shaped and influenced the new generation of art historians and artists.
Samella Lewis’s personal artwork also reflected the social vision of her teaching, scholarship, and institution building. Throughout her life, she created a substantial body of paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. These were figurative, narrative, and socially conscious like those she documented in her scholarship. Her images were often manifestations of civil rights and Black liberation. She regularly portrayed workers and mothers and ordinary African Americans struggling against institutional barriers of racism and sexism. She sometimes employed symbols of raised fists and expressions of Black and worker dignity. She joined the long and honorable tradition of American artists of social conscience.
from author's collection
"Bag Man" by Samella Lewis (ca. 1970)
Lewis also depicted the quiet heroism of Black people struggling to overcome institutional barriers. In her emblematic ca. 1970 painting “Bag Man,” she highlights an African American man collecting the discarded goods of wealthier residents. What is garbage to them is sustenance to him. His defiant expression reflects his determination to make a living as a scavenger if necessary. Lewis employs this solitary figure to convey a broader social point. Like the thousands of people who gather recyclable newspapers, cans, and bottles on the Los Angeles streets up to this day, he does whatever he must to survive.
During her long distinguished career, Lewis fostered recognition and respect for African American visual art. She also eloquently promoted a vision of the responsibilities of African American artists, calling on them to be major community resources and to create artworks that made sense to Black audiences. She lived by her declaration that “Art is not a luxury as many people think—it is a necessity. It documents history—it helps educate people and stores knowledge for generations to come.”