Representing Works from the Estate of
Artist and Instructor

Edward R. Lewis (1914-1992)

Born in Rollis, Minnesota, the Colorist Edward R. Lewis enjoyed a long career as a painter, prolific in watercolor, oil and acrylic. He also dedicated his life to teaching the arts and spent the majority of his artistic career as an art professor holding positions at Sioux Falls College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and at Central Missouri State University (now University of Central Missouri) in Warrensburg, Missouri. His vibrant canvases often ask the viewer to make a quantum leap in perception, as his colors are the vehicle by which he describes light and space.

Lewis began his studies at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, as well as the Minneapolis School of Art and the Walker Art Center before he was called to the Army to fight for his country during World War II. Returning state side, Lewis would work for several years at the St. Cloud Veterans Hospital (St. Cloud, Minnesota) while also earning his Bachelor's Degree in 1950 from the St. Cloud Teacher's College where he studied Art Education. He finalized his Fellowship and Master of Fine Arts degree in 1952 from the University of Iowa where he studied with Stuart Edie, Byron Burford, and Mauricio Lasansky, focusing his Master's thesis on Cezanne and the influence of the Modern Master's watercolor techniques on his oil painting. Considering himself an Abstract Expressionist at this time, Lewis won many awards at regional art shows from Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri and South Dakota. In the summer of 1956 he studied with Rico Lebrun at UCLA as part of his resident requirements for his PhD and in 1957 traveled to Mexico to research for his dissertation on color dynamics. He later finalized his PhD in 1959 at Ohio State University.

In 1965, Lewis was awarded a two-month Fellowship from the Huntington Hartford Foundation in Pacific Palisades, California to work on a new collection, and in 1967 was granted a fellowship from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico where he would study the landscapes of the Taos Pueblo. He also secured a position in the Americans in Paris exhibition of 1976, sponsored by the French Government, where Lewis exhibited two of his paintings. His work was exhibited in museums throughout the Midwest including the Des Moines Art Center; the Denver Art Museum; the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; the University of Chicago; the Sioux City Art Center; the Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri; and also on the west coast at the Los Angeles County Museum. After his retirement from teaching, Lewis settled in southeast Kansas City and would remain teaching private art classes until his death at age 78. His work is included within the permanent collections of the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Iowa State Memorial Union Galleries, Iowa City, Iowa.

EXHIBITED
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Des Moines Art Center
Minneapolis Museum of Art
Springfield (MO) Art Museum
Lawrence Gallery, Kansas City MO.

MILITARY SERVICE
Enlisted U.S. Army 1942, discharged 2nd Lieutenant, 1944

EDUCATION
St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota
1949 Bachelor of Art, Art Major

University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
1951 Master of Fine Arts in Painting

University of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio
1959-1960, Graduate Study in Painting and Art History

CAREER
Sioux Falls College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
1951-1961, Head of Art Department

Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri
1961-1979, Professor of Art

FELLOWSHIPS
1964, Huntington Hartford Foundation
Pacific Palisades, California

1967, The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation
Taos, New Mexico