Shadow and Light: The Etchings of Martin Lewis

Martin Lewis, Break In The Thunderstorm, 1930, Drypoint, 12 x 10 inches, ©The Estate of Martin Lewis

Shadow and Light: The Etchings of Martin Lewis

February 3— May 13, 2018

Celebrating the work of Martin Lewis, arguably America’s most important printmaker of the first half of the twentieth century, this exhibition includes over fifty intaglios and lithographs of urban and rural American life. His atmospheric scenes of harbors and bridges, city skylines, sidewalk scenes lit by street lamps, and misty landscapes have been compared with the etchings of Whistler and even Rembrandt. Lewis’s urban views, whose moody tones have been compared with those of “film noir,” have special appeal to those who love Ashcan School and American Scene paintings. Interestingly, this maker of archetypal American art was an immigrant, born and educated in Australia, who came to this country in 1900. By 1915, he had become a skilled printmaker who shared his knowledge of etching with his friend, Edward Hopper. After the artist’s death in 1962, print collectors continued to appreciate his sensuous works of art, which have remained relatively unknown to the general public.