Norman Wilfred Lewis

Gift of the artist to the present owner

New York, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Norman Lewis Black Paintings 1946-1977, April 1998-September 1998, p. 108, no. 47, illustrated in color

The work is in very good condition overall. There is evidence of stretcher bars along the left and right edges. There is minor wear to the turning edges. The canvas is not taught. There is pale surface soiling.
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Norman Lewis had already been experimenting with all-black or mostly-black canvases when his Abstract Expressionist contemporaries began to produce canvases devoid of all color aside from black. While Lewis was one of the few African American artists associated with the Post-War movement, Lewis insisted that black 'has no social connotation to me.'  Thus, situating his black paintings in the context of similar compositions from the same period and examining them formally, Lewis emerges as a significant and critical painter in the Abstract Expressionist movement.  This position has been confirmed by the inclusion of two of Norman Lewis's canvases in the recent exhibition 'Abstract Expresssionist New York' at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Additionally, in 1998 The Studio Museum in Harlem presented a major retrospective of Lewis' paintings titled Black Paintings 1946 – 1977. Included in the show was the work being presented by Sotheby's titled Dark Horizon (Seascape).