Neville Allan Lewis
Considered in the 1940s to be South Africa’s premier society portraitist, Lewis was steeped in the tradition of British painting and internalised to a high degree the style of Augustus John (1878–1961). The latter’s prolific output was concerned with the lucrative demand to portray members of British society. He also took much interest in a romanticised portrayal of the life of ‘marginal’ British rural folk, notably the gypsies. This social dichotomy in terms of subject matter was replicated to a large degree by Lewis when he set up a studio in London after the First World War. His career in England was punctuated by return visits to South Africa, where besides painting the portraits of important colonial personalities, he also went in quest of rural subjects – South African equivalents, in a sense, of the gypsies of rural Britain. Read More…
