Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

Provenance:

Patricia Lewis, daughter-in-law of Martin Lewis
John P. Axelrod, Massachusetts

This painting is accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Patricia Lewis.

Martin Lewis was born in Australia in 1881. At the age of fifteen he left home and traveled through the countryside of both Australia and New Zealand, intent on making a career in art. He lived briefly in an art colony near Sydney, and then received his only formal art training at the Art Society School in Sydney. Lewis immigrated to the United States in 1900, landing in San Francisco and subsequently making his way across the country until he reached New York around 1909.

Lewis supported himself by working as a commercial artist, while also continue to develop his own art. Several of his prints and watercolors were shown at the gallery Kennedy & Company in the 1920s, but it was not until 1929, when Lewis had a solo exhibition at Kennedy, that he gained attention and acclaim from the New York art world.

Although he is remembered for his prodigious output as a printmaker, Lewis also created many watercolors and oils throughout his career. Lewis was attracted to the culture of New York City’s working class; as a financially struggling artist for the first forty years of his life, it is most likely that he strongly identified with them. The artist also concentrated on capturing ephemeral moments in New York, his best works are imbued with an almost tactile atmosphere, created by the shifting of light and weather as time passes.

In New Neon, Lewis celebrates America’s love of and fascination with the new technology of neon lighting. First introduced to the United States in 1924 from France, neon light was yet another awe-inspiring technological advance, one of many in the early part of the twentieth century (following upon the advances of machinery and the increasing appearance of electric light across the country). Neon light was initially termed “liquid fire” by Americans upon their first encounter with the lamps. It was not unusual for the public to stare in awe at these new lamps, whose luminosity did not diminish in daylight.

But New Neon is a celebration of all types of light, both man-made and natural. Beyond the diagonal of neon at the painting’s upper right, Lewis renders numerous other sources of illumination set against a romantic indigo blue sky: the prominent streetlight at the painting’s center, with its strong glow; the orange of a globular lamp pole light at left center; balanced by the prominent red traffic signal at right; and the numerous, warmly lit interiors of shops in the background. The artist has also subtly inserted natural light into this urban landscape, a thin crescent of a moon hovers above the buildings at the painting’s right.

The figures Lewis has detailed in the foreground, emphasize the exuberant spirit of new technology, the social women dressed in brightly colorful finery, their faces rendered in light and shadow, underscore well the excitement and wonder produced by the new technology of the twentieth century.