Norman Lewis: Shades of Blackness by Bill Hodges Gallery

Norman Lewis

Shades of Blackness

Bill Hodges Gallery 18 November 2021 - 29 January 2022

Cover

Exodus

1972 Oil on Canvas 72 x 88 ½ in. (182.9 x 224.8 cm)

Norman Lewis Shades of Blackness

18 November 2021 - 29 January 2022

Bill Hodges Gallery 529 West 20th Street, #10E, New York, NY 10011 212-333-2640 • www.billhodgesgallery.com

In My Head Norman Lewis’ Black paintings are never truly Black About 28 years ago, Lowery Stokes, the then head of the Studio Museum in Harlem, proposed an exhibition on Lewis’ Black paintings. She was opposed, but finally got to have the exhibition some five years later. That exhibition was titled Norman Lewis: Black Paintings 1946-1977. After more than 28 years showing works by Lewis, and placing over a dozen in major museums and institutions in addition to more than 50 canvases and 200 works on paper to private clients, I feel my foray into his predominately Black paintings is the final piece of the puzzle. In Wikipedia, the term “black paintings” is defined by a “group of fourteen paintings composed by Francisco Goya.” Throughout my years of campaigning the works of Lewis (and I am very clear, I still consider myself a major campaigner of Lewis’ works), having sold a number of black ground works to museums and collectors, i.e., Cantata to Dayton Art Institute, a 1949 untitled work and the beautiful painting, Phantasy II, to MOMA; The thrilling and active painting, Twilight Sounds to the St. Louis Museum of Art; and to a major collector, the small work on board, Woman, and lest we forget the melodic painting, Jazz Band, 1948, and Congregation, 1950. Although Lewis painted black paintings from the mid 1940s, the most pivotal time towards the focus of black paintings was after he, and several others established the artist group, SPIRAL. Spiral was started in 1963 by a group of Black artists to discuss the political strife in America and the museums and most art galleries not exhibiting artist of color and women (albeit, the one woman in Spiral, was Emma Amos). Working in Norman’s loft, I was privy to many of his Black paintings, but I only realized their strength and importance while assisting in curating an exhibition with the Elizabeth Neal gallery in Chicago. After a long day of travel from New York, the three of us were sitting on the floor selecting works for the exhibition, through viewing photographs. After a few hours we decided to take a break, but agreed to leave the photos on the floor. After we stood, I looked down at the photograph of Journey to an End; I have looked at this painting many times in the loft, but never studied the work. I was a neophyte to the complexity and depth of Lewis’ works; familiar with some, but never took the time to read his paintings. You see, to realize the depth and breadth of his pictures you need to read them, you need to open your mind and look, so as I was standing looking down at the photograph, I only then realized it was image of a man on fire. The title, Journey to an End, an individual running away and the ground of the painting was Black. There were these shapes of white hooded figures; it was the Klan setting a person on fire. Then and there I realized, Norman Lewis was a genius and it was then my journey to acquire as many works as possible, because I felt all were tremendously powerful in their own right. So I’m sitting on my favorite throne reading the Times and I open to a page with an ad for an upcoming sale at Christie’s auction house, showing Claude Monet’s painting, Au Jardin, la famille de l’artiste, 1875, a beautiful and spellbinding work. I carefully examined the newspaper’s image trying to realize the thickness of what I surmise was powerful impasto oil paint on the canvas’s surface and saying to myself, this is all planned. Then, I turn the page and the next page is an ad for Louis Vuitton clothing. The model is wearing a beautiful camel colored coat, holding a Louis Vuitton handbag and wearing a Louis Vuitton stole. But in back of her you see a huge painting by Gerhard Richter and I say to myself, this is left to chance. A few years ago I watched a movie of Richter’s process of layering paint on the canvas in positions where he felt it would give the most or closest effect of what he wanted…after applying the paint in thick globs…the exact layering and the mixing of the colors was left to chance as he pulled the squeegee in a downward or sideways motion, and he had no idea of the final outcome. Norman Lewis was not an abstract expressionist, his works were carefully planned. All of the works in this catalogue were planned.

Billy Hodges

Portrait of Norman Lewis at his loft, 64 Grand St., New York, ca. 1975. Courtesy of Anthony Barboza

Norman Lewis: Shades of Blackness Michaela Lunz

Aggressive. Explosive. These synonyms are often what come to mind when we think of the Abstract Expressionist movement, which favored monumental, imposing artistic statements on the canvas.1 Yet this does not describe the work of mid-century abstract painter Norman Lewis, due to the prolific artist’s more subtle, sensitive handling of color and form. Best known for his calligraphic forms and procession-based compositions, Lewis’s work encompasses a vast range of abstract articulation, from hazy atmospherics to dynamic rituals. This is most deftly illustrated in his Black paintings, the subject of the present exhibition, Shades of Blackness. Both a thematic inquiry and a series, Lewis utilized the color black as a major source of formal exploration throughout his career, from his early atmospherics to his late Seachange series. Born in 1909 in Harlem, Lewis began his career as a Social Realist painter, creating realistic portrayals of Black life in America. In line with other Black artists at the time, Lewis used realism, pastiche, and caricature to reject the racist depictions of Blackness perpetuated by White media outlets. Ultimately, Lewis found this approach unsatisfactory, and transitioned to abstraction in the mid 1940s, following his stint with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). From this experience, Lewis found that through abstraction, Black artists could pursue personal artistic expression and liberation. What resulted was an extensive body of work exploring the vast potential of color and form in a style altogether unique to Lewis’s sensibilities and ingenuity as an artist. Situated in the interstices of the Black Art and Abstract Expressionist movements, Lewis’s work has slipped through the cracks of art history, an oversight given the artist’s clear involvement in mid-century abstraction. From his presence at the Artists Session at Studio 50, a seminal discussion founding the Abstract Expressionist movement, to his inclusion in important exhibitions such as “Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America” (MoMA, 1951) and “Nature in Abstraction” (Whitney, 1958), Lewis’s success and inclusion in Abstract Expressionism are evident. Yet, Lewis’s work is rarely mentioned in relation to the movement. Influential texts that outline our understanding of Abstract Expressionism by critics and key scholars like Clement Greenberg, Irving Sandler, and Serge Guilbaut fail to even mention the artist.2 Given Lewis’s close relationship with Abstract Expressionism, this absence from the discourse is quite glaring. Though Lewis ascribed to the same beliefs as his contemporaries, suppressing the narrative in favor of the aesthetic, Lewis did stray from the movement’s hallmarks. Unlike his contemporaries, Lewis did not believe as strongly in art’s separation from the surrounding world. In the Artist’s Sessions at Studio 50, Lewis asked his fellow Abstract Expressionists about the artist’s responsibility to the public. In response, they implied that the artist and his art were separate from the world, and that abstraction released the artist from cultural meaning in art.3 This example illustrates the difference between Lewis’s intellectual and conceptual approach to art, and how it differed from his contemporaries. The realities of living in PostWar America as a Black man informed Lewis’s work, both consciously and subliminally. This disharmony of thought resulted in Lewis’s exclusion from the very narrow theoretical understanding of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Lewis refuses easy categorization, and thus, he is a marvelous figure whose legacy breaks open the notions of the art historical canon.4 Lewis’s black paintings prove to be a rich source of study into the artist’s oeuvre, providing key insights not only into Lewis’s artistic process, but the greater art historical moment that served as the backdrop to his career. Analyzing Lewis’s work, and his Black paintings in particular, allows us to break free of earlier conceptualizations of Abstract Expressionism and thwart the early ho1 2 3 4

Kleeblatt et al., “From the Margins: Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, 1945-1952,” 14-15. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, Norman Lewis: Pulse: A Centennial Exhibition, 6. Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence in the Black Paintings of Norman Lewis,” 36. Conwill, “The Importance of Being Norman,” 9.

mogenous conceptualizations of modernism.5 The following text, catalogue and exhibition dive deeply into how scholars understand Lewis’s Black paintings, and show us how they indeed fit into a new paradigm of mid-century abstraction. Norman Lewis’s Black paintings are defined as such for predominantly featuring the color black.6 Lewis painted with black throughout his career, not as a singular series or singular work, but it was a treatment he used in every subject, thematic inquiry, and formal exploration in his oeuvre.7 According to Lewis, his conscious interest in black came from painting rhododendrons. In the artist’s own words, “I used just black - to convey the form - and I liked that and I went on to try to do other things. Just manipulating the paint was exciting to me.” 8 For Lewis, black was a means to explore form. In Lewis’s own words, he remarks that he, “wanted to see if I could get out of black the suggestion of other nuances of color, using it in such a way as to arouse other colors...This was my becoming...using color in such a way that it could become other things.”9 Fascinated by the interplay of black with other colors and its potential luminosity, he found black to be a powerful means by which to reveal, modulate, and define forms, shedding new perspectives and a new side to those forms.10 Lewis believed structures and form defined relationships, and those relationships are the place from which you can derive meaning.11 Fleshy Phase, 1973-74 (page 19) featured in the present exhibition, perfectly demonstrates how Lewis used black to modulate form and color. In this vertically oriented, large-scale canvas, black serves as both a main feature and the background of the composition. From the bottom of the composition emerge thick bands of graphic blue and red paint, drawn diagonally as to allude to dynamic, organic, upward movement. The form almost resembles fire, as it tapers in the middle of the composition to form a loose triangle. The opacity of the black Lewis uses throughout the composition not only serves as a backdrop to these richly saturated colors, but fills in the gaps of paint to allow for the appearance of a triangular form. Thus, Lewis uses black to define form and explore how colors thereby derive new meanings and visual interpretations for the viewer. When Lewis began to utilize the color in the 1940s, many of his colleagues, such as Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, to name a few, produced their own series predominantly featuring the color black.12 They, like Lewis, also experimented with the tonal nuances of black, and its influence on other colors.13 However, as a mid-century African-American artist, scholars link Lewis’s skin color to a symbolic and literal use of black, an argument Lewis resisted throughout his career. Instead, Lewis stated that he experimented with black for formal reasons and claimed to have never sought out the color for its nod to social and subjective commentary. Kellie Jones, who organized an exhibition of Lewis’s black paintings in 1985, said that for Lewis “the color black [figured both as a dominant compositional element in his abstract paintings, and a social comment.”14 Thus, scholarly insight demonstrates the many ways in which Lewis used black as more than a formal device, and whether consciously or subconsciously, this reflected larger discourses of Lewis’s experience as a Black artist in America. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Gibson. “Black Is A Color: Norman Lewis and Modernism In New York,” 27. Gibson. “Black Is A Color,” 17. Ibid, 11. Ibid, 12. Ibid, 11. Ibid, 11. Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence in the Black Paintings of Norman Lewis,” 33. Gibson, “Black Is A Color,” 11. Jones et al. Eyeminded : Living and Writing Contemporary Art, 487. Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence,” 32.

One major reason scholars argue Lewis held a strong symbolic connection to the color black is because of the artist’s use of referential titles. While his canvases were non-objective in nature, they often boasted titles like “Metropolitan Crowd” and “Alabama” which guide the viewer’s interpretation of the painting. This was most evident in his Civil Rights paintings. Journey to an End, (1964), for example, features Lewis’s identifiable calligraphic figures, brushstrokes made to look like abstract figures, clumped in a procession, another motif seen throughout Lewis’s body of work. The thick brushstrokes, triangular in nature, turn into marching figures, or chaotically assembled warriors. The title, Journey to an End, suggests a triumphant odyssey of some kind, which supplants a story and narrative onto the abstract. In fact, the white paint used to modulate these abstracted figures resemble members of the Klu Klux Klan, supporting the artist’s ties to the Civil Rights movement. Much can be learned from analyzing the titles Lewis chose for his works. As Lewis’s works tended not to be compositionally referential, viewers can turn to the titles of his work to gain insight as to the context and spirit of the work. Many of Lewis’s titles come from daily habits, interests, beliefs, and the cultural moment in which he was painting.15 It is well documented that Lewis was inspired by his environment, and that influenced his paintings. From jazz music and the sites of the city to nighttime tranquility, friends note that Lewis was greatly inspired by his surroundings. Night and nature were of particular interest to the artist, and were a subject explored often in his black paintings. Friend Joan Murray Weissman comments “he really loved night; he loved going out at night, and he loved walking at night, and he loved the sky with stars in it, and he loved lights. He was a night kind of guy.”16 Also, featured in the exhibition is Dusk, 1965 (page 25) a painting which draws inspiration from his daily life, solely on the basis of the title. Though, without the title one might not find a clear connection to nature. Against a foreboding black background, translucent layers of blue paint emerge, which dissipate into the blackness. Based on the tonal quality of the paint, it seems like Lewis used many light washes of paint to treat the canvas, suggesting a depth and intricacy of space which blends the blue mass into the black space. The way in which the varying shades meld into one another evoke a sense of change. Given the title, it seems as though Lewis used black and blue to capture the transience of dusk. Such a reading demonstrates the nuanced ways the artist drew inspiration from his environment, opting for inspiration rather than direct mimesis. Though not often associated with nature, Lewis used black to explore what he could and could not see in his surroundings. A strong example of this comes from a trip to Crete in 1973, in the form of a series of canvases based on a view of the mountains visible from the artist’s room. In Lewis’s own words, “I saw the contour of that mountain change, just from the sun. At night the damn thing disappeared but I knew it was out there,” inciting the artist to ask, “what the hell can I do with this form at night?”17 Three canvases from this series are featured in the exhibition, Shades of Blackness. These paintings demonstrate how the artist’s experiences were tied to his work, and connected through his referential titles. These particular works can be best described as atmospherics; the artist used paint to depict mist or air as a means to record the relationship of objects with light and the world. In Ighia Galini, ca. 1974 (page 13), the black canvas overwhelms any other colors present in the composition. Named for the town in Crete which the artist and his wife stayed, the painting loosely resembles a view of the seascape. Using a dry brush technique, Lewis rubbed white paint into the black canvas, its faintness creating an allusion of a distant organic form, either clouds or a mountain. The horizontal patch of blue in the left corner is reminiscent of the village’s jagged shoreline, loosely articulating the distant horizon line of the seascape.18 This painting is very sparse and abstract, and thus, relies on its title to provide meaning. Without the title referencing the exact town Lewis stayed in, the 15 16 17 18

Gibson, “Black Is A Color: Norman Lewis and Modernism In New York,” 27. Ibid, 18. Ibid, 25. Jones et al. Eyeminded : Living and Writing Contemporary Art, 488.

paint would not transform quite as poetically or adeptly into an evocative seascape. Another composition included in Shades of Blackness that the artist made on his trip to Greece features a mass of blue tones in the middle of the canvas, not quite filling the black edges of the canvas. Entitled Eye of the Storm, 1973 (page 15), the title imbues the work with a subject matter, and the flurry of white lines which outline the blue form are reminiscent of the whirling motion of a storm, with the blue representing a storm’s calm center.19 The third work in the exhibition created from this trip to Greece is No. 5, ca. 1970s (page 17), a work whose interpretation is not dictated by the title. In this vertically oriented artwork, Lewis paints thick swathes of blue onto an overwhelmingly black canvas, which he applies horizontally in curved strokes. Emerging from the bottom of the canvas, the brushstrokes delineate a triangle, as the strokes become shorter towards the middle of the canvas. The form might resemble a mountain or other natural landform. Regardless, the work describes Lewis’s sensory experience of natural phenomena, “distilled, and rearticulated by the artist,” as said by Kellie Jones.20 What is evident from these paintings is how Lewis uses black not to modulate a whole setting, but rather, to suggest it. Associated with invisibility and that which is hidden, black not only articulates form, but hides it. The sharp forms and thin lines in Ighia Galini, for example, held a sense of obscuring darkness, making black not just about absence, but a demonstration of presence and the mystery surrounding all which is unseen.21 In Untitled, 1974 (page 23) Lewis uses light and shadow to delineate a floating orb, of which only half the form is visible to the viewer. Orbs were a motif seen frequently in Lewis’s atmospheric works,22 and when obscured by mists and darkness, as is the case in this work, in which gleaming swathes of blue paint and the black abyss somewhat veiled over the form, invokes this balance of absence and presence which entices the viewer. The suggestion of what is hidden denotes presence in itself. What is not there, one must recall in order to flesh out a full understanding of the painting. Blackness merely suggests meaning, and therefore, stirs presence.23 With all these references to his life, it is no surprise that scholars and critics alike mine Lewis’s work for its symbolic meaning. In her essay for the Studio Museum’s exhibition, Norman Lewis: Black Paintings 1946-1977, scholar Ann Eden Gibson claims the artist’s evocative titles suggest his conscious connection of black to the outside world, an argument strengthened by the fact that the cultural moment was laden with connecting the African American experience to the color Black.24 Even close friend Julian Euell, the musician, said, “[black] was a device or technique frequently used by Blacks in spirituals, blues, and theater. I am sure that Norman knew of and used this device.”25 Thus, even subconsciously, Lewis knew the color could not be pure from these connotations.26 As has been mentioned, Lewis strongly resisted such interpretations. While Lewis did begin his career finding value in representational art, he ultimately found this approach unsatisfactory, saying

“I used to paint Black people in their struggle for existence, but soon I found out that this was a waste of time be cause the very people who you want to see this kind of thing didn’t see it. I don’t think it helps the struggle.”27

19 Jones et al. Eyeminded : Living and Writing Contemporary Art, 488. 20 Ibid. 21 Gibson, “Black Is A Color: Norman Lewis and Modernism In New York,” 24. 22 Ibid, 25. 23 Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence in the Black Paintings of Norman Lewis,” 33. 24 Gibson, “Black Is A Color,” 13. 25 Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence,” 35. 26 Gibson, “Black Is A Color,” 27. 27 Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence in the Black Paintings of Norman Lewis,” 32.

When Lewis began his artistic career in the 30s, the Black Art movement saw figuration as a rejection of the dominant white art world, who in that cultural moment, favored abstraction.28 Mimetic art could directly communicate with Black audiences,29 and directly serves the Black community, a notion echoed by cultural thought leaders like Alain Locke.30 At first, Lewis saw pastiche and caricature as a form of backlash, and a reclamation of racist depictions of Blackness.31 But Lewis did not want to fall into the “African Idioms,” “Negro Idiom,” or “Social Painting.” 32 Instead, in line with his friend and collaborator Romare Bearden, Lewis believed the African-American artist must develop his own artistic and theoretical approach. Only then could they break free of confining conceptions of black art that can be produced by the Black artist.33 In the artist’s own words, “The development of one’s aesthetic abilities suffers by such an emphasis [on social problems]...The goal of the artist must be aesthetic development and, in a universal sense, to make in his own way some contribution to culture.”34 To Lewis, playing into populism and conventional taste did not do the artist justice if it did not lift up his potential, the ultimate form of resistance and sociopolitical transcendence. His outlook is illustrated in a quote from 1966, in which the artist said, “I am not interested in an illustrative statement that merely mirrors some of the social conditions... Political and social aspects should not be the primary concern: esthetic ideas should have preference.”35 In this context it is clear that Lewis’s perspective was incompatible with the ideologies of the Abstract Expressionist art historical canon, thus leading to the exclusion of his work from the movement’s oeuvre. His referential titles framing viewer’s interpretation of the work subverted Greenberg’s theorizations of Abstract Expressionism.36 Lewis believed in looking inward and resisting the external.37 He shied away from social commentary in his art, avoiding overtly pictorial content in his work.38 To his contemporaries like Pollock and Rothko, abstraction was the ideal means of self-expression. The drips and smears of paint on the canvas were a record of the art-making process, making the action of the painting the subject matter and direct expression of the artist.39 It was about articulating self-presence through immediacy, and this coming through the literal marks of paint and surface maneuverings of the canvas.40 Thus, the canvas transmitted the artist’s consciousness.41 Abstract Expressionists resisted the notion that the outside world influenced their processes at all, finding meaning in the physical and literal rather than illusionistic, symbolic references.42 But Lewis’s version of self-analysis drew on the exterior world, as the external world inspires the internal world of the creative individual, a reality which his white contemporaries resisted.43 Abstract Expressionism endorsed in non-mimetic art that did not quote the outside world, and yet, Lewis frequently did so in his work.44 What 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Sims, “The African American Artist and Abstraction,” 42. Conwill, “The Importance of Being Norman,” 9. Sims, “The African American Artist,” 44. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, Norman Lewis: Pulse: A Centennial Exhibition, 8-9. Craven, “Norman Lewis as Political Activist And Post Colonial Artist,” 56. Sims, “The African American Artist,” 45. Kleeblatt et al., “From the Margins: Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, 1945-1952,” 20. Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence,” 32. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, Norman Lewis: Pulse: A Centennial Exhibition, 6. Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence,” 40. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, Norman Lewis: Pulse: A Centennial Exhibition, 6. Gibson, “Recasting the Canon: Norman Lewis and Jackson Pollock.” Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence,” 31-33. Ibid, 34. Ibid, 33. Veneciano, “The Quality of Absence,” 40. Sims, “The African American Artist and Abstraction,” 42.

this framing of Abstract Expressionism omits is that the self is shaped by culture. A painting can be a pure representation of the self, but that self is born and defined against a socio-cultural moment. It is a privilege for these white artists to believe they were not inspired by their environment, and did not think to see differences, as their whiteness was the default. The mainstream Abstract Expressionists failed to account for the innumerable intersections between the outside world and the artist’s interior self. Even themes in Abstract Expressionism such as universality and gender are inextricably entangled with a work’s cultural context. For Lewis, the artist is profoundly influenced by their zeitgeist, and this sensibility is made evident in the titles of his work. This divergence of thought – between Lewis and the mainstream Abstract Expressionists, speaks to the degree of privilege afforded to White male artists of the time. Speaking historically, society writ large was built by and for the interests of White men. As a result, those privileged by this history are socialized to view life, and in this case, artistic practice, as a clean slate, or tabula rasa, upon which they are free to project their sense of individuality. Black artists are not afforded the same luxury. In this vein, Lewis’s approach differed from that of the mainstream. Rather than subscribing to an ideology that advocated for distance from one’s cultural moment, Lewis boldly embraced the interconnectedness of the creative self with the kaleidoscopic nature of the world around him. Lewis attended to this sensibility through his brilliant use of the color black in his paintings, a technique that cleverly engaged with abstract notions of penumbra, phosphorescence, and life’s shadowy, yet very real enigmas which have yet to be fully encapsulated with words alone.

Exodus

1972 Oil on Canvas 72 x 88 ½ in. (182.9 x 224.8 cm)

Exhibition History: Master Paintings: from 1943-1977, May 15 2004 – June 5 2004. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Selections from the Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, September 3 2020 – October 17 2020. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY

Literature: Bill Hodges Gallery. 25 Highly Important Paintings by Norman Lewis. New York, 2009. p.50 Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman Lewis: A Painter’s Odyssey 1935 - 1979. New York, 2009. p.19 Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman W. Lewis, et al. New York, 2017. p.7

Ighia Galini

ca. 1974 Oil on Canvas 54 ⅝ x 78 in. (138.7 x 198.1 cm)

Exhibition History: Color. Theory. & (b/w), 14 December 2019 - 25 October 2020. John & Charlotte Suhler Gallery at Sarasota Art Museum, Sarasota, FL Literature: Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman Lewis: A Painter’s Odyssey 1935-1979. New York, 2009. p.58

Please note: this work is mistitled Untitled (Black Series #8), dated ca. 1960s in Norman Lewis: A Painter’s Odyssey 1935-1979 and in upside-down direction.

Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman W. Lewis, et al. New York, 2017. p.21

Please note: this work is mistitled Untitled (Black Series #8) in Norman W., Lewis, et al.

Eye of the Storm

1973 Oil on Canvas 51 ⅛ x 87 ½ in. (129.9 x 222.3 cm)

Literature: Bill Hodges Gallery. 25 Highly Important Paintings by Norman Lewis, 1998. p.53 Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman W. Lewis, et al. New York, 2017. p.22

No.5

ca. 1970s Oil on Canvas 78 ¼ x 54 ¾ in. (198.8 x 139.1 cm)

Exhibition History: Norman Lewis Canvas, 12 November 2015 - 13 February 2016. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY

Literature: Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman W. Lewis, et al. New York, 2017. p.20

Fleshy Phase

1973-1974 Oil on Canvas 82 ⅝ x 49 ¾ in. (209.9 x 126.4 cm)

Untitled

9-1970 Oil on Paper 29 ½ x 41 ½ in. (74.9 x 105.4 cm)

Exhibition History: Norman Lewis: Small Paintings & Drawings, 12 September - 15 November 2014. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Artist of the WPA, 16 April - 6 June 2015. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Norman Lewis: Works on Paper, 24 September - 7 November 2015. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Norman Lewis: Drawings and Works on Paper, 18 February - 2 April 2016. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Bearden & Company, 27 February - 28 August 2020. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Literature: Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman Lewis: A Painter’s Odyssey 1935-1979. New York, 2009. p.47

Untitled

1974 Oil on Paper 28 ¾ x 23 in. (73 x 58.4 cm)

Exhibition History: Recent Acquisitions, 11 September - 13 October 2007, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Norman Lewis: Small Paintings and Works on Paper, 12 June - 21 July 2012, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Norman Lewis: Small Paintings and Drawings, 12 September - 15 November 2014. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY History, 20 November 2014 - 10 January 2015. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Norman Lewis: Works on Paper, 24 September 2015 - 7 November 2015. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Norman Lewis: Drawings and Works on Paper, 18 February - 2 April 2016. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Literature: Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman Lewis: A Painter’s Odyssey 1935-1979. New York, 2009. p.73

Dusk

1965 Oil on Canvas 57 x 50 in. (144.8 x 127 cm)

Literature: Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman Lewis: A Painter’s Odyssey 1935-1979. New York, 2009. p.42

Untitled (Dancer)

1950 Oil on Canvas 29 ½ x 34 in. (74.9 x 86.4 cm)

Bibliography Conwill, Kinshasha Holman. “The Importance of Being Norman” In Norman Lewis Black Paintings 1946-1977, 9-10. New York: The Studio Museum In Harlem, 1998. Craven, David. “Norman Lewis as Political Activist And Post Colonial Artist.” In Norman Lewis Black Paintings 1946-1977, 51-60. New York: The Studio Museum In Harlem, 1998. Gibson, Ann. “Black Is a Color: Norman Lewis and Modernism in New York.” In Norman Lewis Black Paintings 1946-1977, 11-30. New York: The Studio Museum In Harlem, 1998. Gibson, Ann. “Recasting the Canon: Norman Lewis and Jackson Pollock.” Artforum International 30, no. 7 (March 1992). Jones, Kellie, Amiri Baraka, Hettie Jones, Lisa Jones, and Guthrie P Ramsey. Eyeminded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. Kleeblatt, Norman L., Stephen Brown, Lisa Saltzman, Mia L Bagneris, Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, and Jewish Museum. From the Margins: Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, 1945-1952. New York: Jewish Museum, 2014. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. Norman Lewis: Pulse, A Centennial Exhibition. New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2009. Sims, Lowery Stokes. “The African American Artist and Abstraction.” In Norman Lewis Black Paintings 1946- 1977, 42-49. New York: The Studio Museum In Harlem, 1998. Veneciano, Jorge Daniel. “The Quality of Absence in the Black Paintings of Norman Lewis.” In Norman Lewis Black Paintings 1946-1977, 31-41. New York: The Studio Museum In Harlem, 1998.

Credits Catalogue Design Claire (Tianyi) Fan Foreword Billy E. Hodges Essay Michaela Lunz Editor Navindren Hodges Artist Photograph (Inside Cover) Chester Higgins Jr. Artist Photograph (Page 3) Anthony Barboza Artwork Photography Daniel Portnoy Navindren A. Hodges Zachary Bunin Claire (Tianyi) Fan Gallery Assistant Zachary Bunin Claire (Tianyi) Fan Irene Ross ISBN Edition of 1,000 Printed in China

1-891978-30-6

Fleshy Phase

1973-1974 Oil on Canvas 82 ⅝ x 49 ¾ in. (209.9 x 126.4 cm)

“I used just black - to convey the form - and I liked that and I went on to try to do other things. Just manipulating the paint was exciting to me.” - Norman Lewis

Bill Hodges Gallery 529 West 20th Street, 10E New York, NY 10011 www.billhodgesgallery.com