Samella Lewis never listened to the naysayers who told her what she couldn’t do. She brushed off their comments as she went on to invest more than five decades of unrivaled work in the art world.
In 1945, she became the first African American woman to earn doctorate degrees in fine arts and art history at Ohio State University.
In 1969, she founded the first African American-owned art publishing house so she could release a book she co-authored Black Artists on Art.
From 1969 to 1984, Lewis taught at Scripps College, becoming its first tenured African American professor.
In 1976, she helped establish the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles. She later created the scholarly journal the International Review of African American Art.
In 1978, she wrote Art: African American, the first book thoroughly reviewing African American art. Through the museum, the journal, and her countless books, Lewis for years elevated the profile of African American artists who may otherwise have gone unnoticed.
An exhibition of her selected works will be featured in the Samella Lewis and the African American Experience art display at the Louis Stern Fine Arts gallery in West Hollywood. This exhibition of her selected art pieces opens Feb. 25 and continues through April 21.
Lewis, who is professor emerita of art at Scripps College, is an award-winning author, accomplished visual artist, and internationally-recognized historian of African American and African art.
Recently, Scripps College honored Lewis by nominating her as one of KCET‘s “Local Heroes” for Black History Month. She is featured on the public television’s Web site.
In addition, the College created the Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection to exhibit Lewis’ works and those of other significant contemporary artists, with a special, though not exclusive, focus on art by women and African American artists.
In 2003, the College also established the Samella Lewis Scholarship, which is awarded to African American students who demonstrate exemplary traits in character, leadership, and responsibility.
“Black women are nurturers,” Lewis told Essence magazine in an interview. “We nurture our families by seriously listening to and seriously considering what they tell us. We also have an obligation to see that valuing and collecting contemporary art is a significant aspect of nurturing.
“We must familiarize ourselves with our historical and contemporary art in order to understand and know ourselves.”