Heroic Evening
Artist
Norman Lewis
(American, 1909 - 1979)
Date1963
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 71 3/4 x 48 in. (182.2 x 121.9 cm)
ClassificationsPAINTINGS
Credit LineGift of the American Academy of Arts and Letters from the Childe Hassam Fund
Object number71.16
Description On View
Not on viewCollections
CopyrightPresumed copyright: the artist or the artist's representative/heir(s).
Label TextIn his early career, Norman Lewis painted representational scenes of daily life in his Harlem neighborhood. By the late 1940s, however, he turned to abstraction. He later said, "I used to paint Black people in their struggle for existence, but I don't think it helps the struggle." In the 1950s he exhibited regularly in New York City and was associated with other artists working in the Abstract Expressionist style.
Lewis's abstract paintings often suggest natural phenomena, such as fog or twilight. Heroic Evening is a meditative landscape in which he has captured the special quality of soft light and brilliant reflections at sundown.
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