Alfred Neville Lewis was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1895. He immigrated to England in 1912 where he first studied in Cornwall and then at the Slade School of Art in London from 1914–16. Active in London in the interwar years, Lewis is best known for his portraits of English gypsies and black subjects in rural South Africa.
Painter and portraitist Alfred Neville Lewis, commonly known as Neville Lewis, was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 8 October 1895. He grew up and studied there, but at the age of 17 immigrated to England to study with Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn, Cornwall in 1912. He then studied under Henry Tonks, Ambrose McEvoy and Augustus John at the Slade School of Art, London from 1914–16 (then the most progressive art school in England), after which he served with the British army in Italy and France during the First World War. At this time, Lewis produced many war paintings, but it was after the conflict ended that he continued to work in London, where he quickly developed a reputation as a portrait painter, his works evidently influenced by John’s use of colour and composition.
Taking on a studio in London, in 1920 Lewis he held his first solo show at Carfax Gallery (which had been closely associated with the Camden Town Group), became a member of the New English Art Club, and married fellow Slade student, Theo Townshend. At this point The Times described him as ‘a born portrait painter’ who ‘is always at his best in the simple and direct expression of individual character’ ('Mr. A. Neville Lewis', 1920). In 1922, when his marriage ended, his two sons Tom and David went to Cape Town where they were brought up by their grandparents, and his daughter Catherine stayed with his ex-wife. The same year, Lewis exhibited in the Grosvenor Galleries’ Summer Exhibition, where he showed his Two Gipsy Children, indicative of how gypsy subjects of rural England (a subject shared with John) would predominate his work in this early period. He showed more gypsy paintings in the Goupil Gallery’s Spring Exhibition in 1923, described by a writer in The Times for portraying their ‘semi-idiocy’ (‘The Goupil Gallery’, 1923). Lewis immediately responded with pronounced anger, writing in to the editor to defend his subjects and stating that they are ‘very intelligent people. I have not yet come across a gipsy ‘idiot’’ (Lewis, 1923).
As the 1920s progressed, Lewis regularly travelled to South Africa where he painted portraits of rural black subjects and exhibited them back in England. In 1925 selected works were shown in his Native Life in South Africa exhibition at the prestigious Leicester Galleries, London for which this time The Times wrote: ‘Lewis is most familiar of late as a painter of gipsies, and his work in this kind has suffered a little from hesitation between psychological and formal interest. In returning to his native South Africa he may be said to be ‘touching earth’, with advantage to his work in unity of motive – since the psychology of the ‘native’ does not much trouble his body’ (‘Art Exhibitions: Leicester Galleries’, 1925). In 1930, his work described as ‘between the academic and the modernist’, Lewis was noted for his similarities with his old teacher, John, but was deemed ‘less romantic and more circumstantial’ (‘Art Exhibitions: Goupil Gallery’, 1930). Lewis was critical of John, however, and in particular his inability to capture the variety of tones on the skins of his black sitters. Lewis’ painting, on the other hand, was described as ‘strong and vivid’ in the Creative Art magazine, coming from ‘a genuine delight in colour and a bold attitude towards values’ (Simonson and Kent, 1930). However, to the contrary, Lewis’ portraits have since been criticised for their ‘monotonous monochromatic grading of local tones’ (Berman, 1983).
Lewis continued to exhibit widely in London throughout the 1930s. He exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1931, as well as in his solo Exhibition of Paintings by Neville Lewis at Arthur Tooth & Sons in 1935. He also became a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1936. In addition to his portraits of rural subjects in England and South Africa, he painted high-profile sitters such as Sir Winston Churchill and Field-Marshall Lord Montgomery. During the Second World War Lewis was appointed an official war artist for South Africa and, after briefly returning to England after the war, moved permanently to Stellensbosch, South Africa in the late 1940s. There he continued to paint and exhibit widely. In 1963 he published his autobiography, Studio Encounters, in which he discusses his time in England and mentions notable buyers of his work, such as Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, Sir Cyril Butler and Roger Fry. Alfred Neville Lewis died in Stellensbosch, South Africa on 26 July 1972. His works are found in many UK public collections, including the British Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum, and Manchester Art Gallery.