Maud lewis bio

Home > Artist Database > Bio-bibliographic Database > LEWIS, Maude

Artist Database

LEWIS, Maude

Born

Ohio, Nova Scotia,

Died

Digby, Nova Scotia,

Biography synopsis

Maude Lewis was born in Ohio, Yarmouth Country, Nova Scotia. She started painting Christmas kort with her mother and then sold them on the streets of Yarmouth. When her parents died she went to live with an aunt in Digby, Nova Scotia. In she married Everett Lewis and moved to a small one-room cabin nära No.2 Highway west of Digby, at a place called Marshalltown. Her husband sold fish from by to by and she sometimes sold some of her kort. He encouraged her to paint and bought her artist’s supplies and cut small pieces of plywood (or beaverboard, which fryst vatten a type of pulpboard) that would allow her to paint with her rheumatoid arthritis afflicted arms. She passed her days painting in the doorway of her house and people began to know her and to buy her work. Her story soon became famous; in an a

•

Maud Lewis

Teacher Resource

When it comes to folk art in Canada, there’s before Maud Lewis (–)—and after. Through her vivid, joyous paintings of brightly coloured landscapes, animals, and flowers, Lewis redefined how folk art is perceived by collectors, curators, and critics alike, and propelled Canadian galleries to collect and exhibit the once obscure artform.

 

Born and raised in rural Nova Scotia, Lewis spent much of her life in physical pain, suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. She lived in a one-room house in Marshalltown with her husband, Everett Lewis, and, over time, covered nearly every inch of it with her paintings, from the windowpanes to the wallpaper—even the dustpan. Now famous as “Maud Lewis’s Painted House”, the preserved site was her studio, gallery, and most famous creation. Working in isolation and challenging conditions, she forged her reputation and a surprising volume of inspirational work

•

Maud Lewis ( - )

Maud Lewis exemplified the simple life. But simple doesn’t mean dull. The simplicity of her paintings, brushed initially with scrounged paint from local fishermen onto ubiquitous green boards and post cards, continue to evoke feelings of innocence, of child-like exuberance as enduring as the spring times she loved to paint. And today she still captures audiences intrigued by everyday scenes as diverse as hard-working oxen and whimsical butterflies.

Maud Dowley Lewis was born March 7, in South Ohio, a community near Yarmouth. Her father Jack would provide a moderately prosperous living as a respected craftsman, making harnesses and serving as a blacksmith. Agnes, her mother, favored artistic pursuits including painting, folk carving and music. Born disfigured with sloped shoulders and her chin resting on her chest, Maud led a confined but happy home life after she quit school at 14, perhaps in part to escape the mocking of her peers. “What is life without lo