Artists

Alfred Neville Lewis was born in Cape Town in 1895 when it was still the Cape Colony. His father was Reverend AJS Lewis, who was Mayor of Cape Town from 1929 to 1931 and who officially opened the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway on 4 October 1929. At the age of seventeen, in 1912, Lewis went to England where he first studied at the Newlyn Art School under Stanhope Forbes and then at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks between 1914 and 1916. After WWI, during which he served with the British army in Italy and France, he worked in London where he garnered attention as a portrait painter. In 1920, he mounted his first solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery and joined the New English Art Club. In 1936, he became a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. During WWII, Lewis served as the first Official South African War Artist and settled back in South Africa after the war. He is well known for his figure and portrait paintings. His work can be found in many collections, including The Tate, London, UK; The British Museum, London, UK; The University of Leeds, UK; and the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, SA.