24

Norman Lewis

(1909-1979)

The Dishwasher.

Oil on linen canvas, 1944.
Signed and dated in oil, lower right.
36 x 26 in. (91.4 x 66 cm.), Frame: 43 1/2 x 33 1/4 x 2 in. (110.5 x 84.5 x 5.1 cm.)

  • Provenance:
    Bill Hodges Gallery, New York.
    Private collection, Washington, DC.

  • Exhibited:
    Norman Lewis: Social Realism to Abstraction, 1933-1948, Ben Shahn Galleries, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ. February 1998.
    Norman Lewis 1909-1979: 25 Highly Important Paintings, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY, May 23 - July 11, 1998 (illustrated).

    Norman Lewis approached social realism with an increasingly modernist approach by the mid-1940s. Lewis also achieved greater national recognition as his paintings were included in a number of institutional exhibitions in 1944: American Negro Art: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture at the Newark Museum; the influential New Names in American Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, which traveled to the G Place Gallery in Washington, DC; and Painting in the United States at the Carnegie Institute.

    In 1944, Lewis was teaching at the George Washington Carver School in Harlem alongside Elizabeth Catlett, Ernest Crichlow, Hale Woodruff and Charles White. According to Ruth Fine, he also began showing at the Roko Gallery while working as its co-director with Jane Rogers. Norman Lewis understood the struggles of working men and women — he had experience working in several menial jobs in the late 1920s and early 1930s, including as a porter, cook and elevator operator.
  • Condition:
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October 7, 2025 12:00 PM EDT
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