Samella Lewis

Early Life and Background

Lewis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Widely exhibited and collected as an artist herself, Lewis is better known as a historian, critic and collector of art, especially African-American art. Lewis has completed four degrees, five films, seven books and a substantial body of artworks which have received critical respect. She pursued an art degree starting off at Dillard University in 1941, but left Dillard for Hampton Institute in Virginia, earning her master's degree in 1947. She earned her B.A. degree at Hampton University, then completed her master and doctorate in art history and cultural anthropology at the Ohio State University in 1951. Lewis is the first female African American to earn a doctorate in fine art and art history.

Lewis became the first African American to earn her PhD in Fine Arts and Art History at Florida A&M University in 1951; Lewis also became the first African American to convene National conference of African American artist held at Florida A&M University in 1953. She was a professor at the State University of New York and at Scripps College in Claremont, California. She co-founded, with Bernie Casey, the Contemporary Crafts Gallery in Los Angeles in 1970. In 1973, she served on the selection committee for the exhibition BLACKS: USA: 1973 held at the New York Cultural Center.

Lewis's grandson is Bay Area artist and musician Unity Lewis. He plans to create a contemporary version of Samella Lewis's catalog "Black Artists on Art," which featured black artists not typically showcased in mainstream art galleries and sold thousands of copies. “I wanted to make a chronology of African American artists, and artists of African descent, to document our history. The historians weren’t doing it. I felt it better the artists do it anyway, through pictorial and written information… It was really about the movement,” Samella Lewis said of the book published in 1969 and 1971.

1960-70s Samella Lewis belonged to a group of artist that would meet every month.

Lewis has been collecting art since the year 1942. She mostly collects art from WPA and the Harlem Renaissance.

Career

In the 1960s–1970s her work, which includes lithographs, linocuts, and serigraphs, reflected humanity and freedom. Between 1969-70, Lewis and E.J. Montgomery were consultants for a "ground breaking" exhibition creating awareness to the history of African American history and art.

Lewis is the founder of the International Review of African American Art in 1975. She founded the Museum of African-American Arts in 1976. She is an NAACP member, and a collector of art with her collection including African, Chinese, Asian, South American and other art. Some of the art that Lewis has collected was transferred to the Hampton Institute, now the University Museum.

In 1984, she produced a monograph for her colleague and artist Elizabeth Catlett.

In 2015 Unity Lewis and art entrepreneur Trevor Parham created The Legacy Exhibit, which featured three generations of black fine artists, including contemporary artists as well as some included in the original "Black Artists on Art." The show launched their recruitment efforts for 500 black American artists to participate in the updated volumes.

Founded Museums and Exhibitions

In 1976, Samella Lewis founded the "Museum of African-American Arts" with a group of artistic, academic, business and community leaders in Los Angeles, California. These founders had similar goals including increasing the public's awareness of African American art. Many individual and corporations, such as Macy's, made generous donations to the museum. The museum continues to operate on these donations to this day. Additionally, the museum's staff and volunteers are dedicated to supporting the museum. Lewis once mentioned an "art of inspiration" based on the experiences of African Americans themselves.

Samella Lewis, as the staff's senior curator in the museum, not only organized great numbers of exhibitions but also developed diverse ways of educating the public on African American arts. In an article, she discussed the ideas of "art of tradition", and argued that museums had the responsibility to explore the African roots of African American art.

Lewis founded three other museums in the Los Angeles, California. She also has a museum west of Mississippi.

Awards and recognition