A few weeks ago, I came across the artwork of Anna Mary Robertson Moses AKA Grandma Moses. I absolutely love the colour, vibrancy, subjects, and sweetness of Moses’ paintings.
Following my discovery of the work of Grandma Moses I was told about the work of Maud Lewis. Maud Lewis’s artwork is like that of Moses’, but Lewis’ paintings exude a charm, vitality, and happiness all their own.
While researching the artwork of Maud Lewis, I found out a lot about her life. Maud lived a difficult, but interesting life. One that I would like to share with you:
Maud Lewis was born on March 7th 1903 in the small seaside town of Yarmouth in Nova Scotia, Canada. As a child Maud was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which affected her arms and hands, making them misshapen and painful. She also had hunched shoulders and difficulty lifting her chin.
Lewis began painting from an early age. When she was a child her mother taught her how to paint with watercolours.
After her parents died Maud went to live with her aunt. Whilst staying with her aunt Lewis answered a job advertisement from a local fisherman called Everett Lewis who was looking for a housekeeper to help him around the house. Not long afterwards the two were married in 1938.
Maud began painting again when she moved in with Everett. The couple had set up home in Everett’s tiny one-roomed house and Maud set about decorating every surface of their home with her paintings, including the chairs, stove, sink and windowpanes. The house had no electricity or running water.
Lewis began painting at this time using recycled boat and house paint, and items such as wallpaper, baking sheets and particleboard as her canvas. She eventually moved on to painting with oil paints.
Maud began selling her artworks in the form of hand-drawn Christmas cards, which she would sell to her husband’s customers when she accompanied him on his daily door to door fish selling rounds. She also sold her paintings to passing tourists.
Lewis painted from memory, from scenes she observed from the window of her house and from observations she made during her occasional trips into town. She never mixed her oil paints, (giving her work a striking richness) and she never added shadows to her paintings, giving her artwork a feeling of tenderness, nostalgia and happiness.
Maud really began receiving recognition for her artwork in 1965 when she featured in a national CBC documentary and in an article published by the Toronto Star. The subsequent publicity that Lewis received generated a lot of requests for her paintings.
Maud died of pneumonia on 30th July 1970 at the age of 67, brought on by lung damage caused by constant exposure to paint fumes and wood smoke.
In 2017 a film depicting Maud Lewis’ life entitled ‘Maudie’ was released by Mongrel Media. The trailer for the film can be viewed on YouTube if you would be interested in watching the film.
References
1. Alexxa Gotthardt (2017) ‘The Joyous World of Overlooked Canadian Folk Artist Maud Lewis’: https://www.artsy.net/.../artsy-editorial-joyous... 2. Nina Renata Aron (2017) ‘Meet the Woman Who Painted in a One-Room Shack and Became a National Treasure’: https://timeline.com/maud-lewis-canadian-painter... 3. Brian Bergman (2017) ‘Maud Lewis’: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/.../paying-tribute... 4. The Artists Website (2020) ‘Maud Lewis’: https://www.the-artists.org/maud-lewis/ 5. UK Disability History Month (2017) ‘Maud Lewis, 1903-1970’: https://ukdhm.org/maud-lewis-1903-1970/
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