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| Samella Lewis, Black Sun, 1970 |
This fall will see several museum shows exploring the history of Black artists in 20th-century Los Angeles. First to open is an exhibition at the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art devoted to Samella Lewis (1923–2022), an artist, educator, art historian, curator, and museum founder. Lewis studied with Elizabeth Catlett in New Orleans and was run out of Florida by its governor (not the current one) for being woke. (She chaired the fine arts department at Florida A&M University.) Lewis ended up in Los Angeles, where she taught at CSU Long Beach and Scripps College, worked at LACMA, and founded the Museum of African American Art.
As an artist, Lewis is best known as a virtuosic printmaker in linocut, lithograph, and silkscreen. The Claremont Lewis exhibition will present Lewis' work alongside that of artists she taught or influenced. "Samella! Black as Lacquer and Iron" runs Aug. 15–Nov. 15, 2026.
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| Samella Lewis, untitled (Back of Woman), 1942 |
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