Artist Information
Artist
Virginia Lewis (1905-1999)Role
ArtistDate made
1978Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born Virginia Sheffield Taprell in Vancouver, Virginia Lewis was an accomplished Modernist Canadian painter, active in Victoria in the 1950s and in the 1960s came to be recognized as the best known woman abstract expressionist* in the city. She studied with Arthur Lismer CC, RCA (1885—1969), member of the Canadian Group of Seven at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto in the 1920s and later with A. C. (Arthur Crocker) Leighton, RBA (1901-1965) in Calgary. She moved to Victoria in the early 1950s, becoming a student at the art school of the Czechoslovakian-born artist Jan Zach (1914-1886), one of few artists teaching modern art trends at the time, known for fostering individual styles in his students.
Active in the developing and lively modern arts community in Victoria, Lewis first exhibited with fellow students of Jan Zach, some of whom formed “The Point Group” (later becoming “The Limners”), a local artists collective that was ultimately comprised of twelve artists devoted to creative freedom, collaboration and individual expression. This group exhibited above the Egoyan’s furniture store “The Don Adams Gallery” on Fort Street until 1962. Lewis held her first solo show there in 1960 and a year later at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) with The Point Group. Most active in the mid-1950s to the late 1960s she exhibited in a number of solo and group shows such as at the Vancouver Art Gallery 24th Annual exhibition in 1955, at the Don Adams Gallery (group and solo shows on 160 and 1961), and at the AGGV multiple jury shows (1961, 1964 1965, 1967).
Lewis also traveled extensively in the 1960s to study contemporary art often with fellow artist and close friend Elza Mayhew RCA (1916-2004), perhaps one of Canada's best known artists and sculptors from the mid-20th century modernist period. Lewis herself, while a respected, talented and prolific artist, was less well-known and it was not until recent years that her works came into permanent institutional collections in Victoria such as the AGGV and the University of Victoria which also holds her archives, as well as the Pentiction Art Gallery. She painted well into her eighties, but did not put her work forward for exhibition in her later years.
*While the term "abstract expressionism" is believed to have first been used in Germany in 1919, Abstract Expressionism emerged as a distinct art movement in the U.S. after WWII gaining mainstream acceptance and flourishing into the mid-1950s and beyond. This movement effectively shifted the art world's focal centre from Europe (specifically Paris) to New York. Abstract expressionism uses bold colors and shapes, does not generally represent reality and aims to evoke emotions with a focus on the inner world of the artist.
