Name

Aletta Lewis

Culture

English

Gender

Female

Birth date

1904

Birth place

Orpington, Kent, England View on map Close map

Death date

1955

Death Place

Hamstead, London, England View on map Close map

Movements

Australia 1927-29, England from 1930

Occupations

Artist (painter) | Drawer | Illustrator | Printmaker | Teacher | Writer

Summary

Worked: Australia (NSW). Wood-engravings

NGA IRN

11753

Context

Australia

Biography

Aletta Lewis  Painter, Illustrator and writer

Born in Orpington, Kent, UK 5^th July 1904, she studied at the Slade, London where she held a scholarship. She came to Australia in early 1927 where she became involved with Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School, teaching there three days a week until 1929. 

Aletta took part in the second Exhibition of Modern Art at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1927 (a Contemporary Group Show) and exhibited with the NSW Society of Artists 1927-29. John Young, director of the Macquarie Galleries, gave her a solo show in May 1928 and suggested that she travel to American Samoa to fulfil her desire to paint ‘brown people’ (sounds a bit racist but wasn’t.) He arranged for four sponsors to fund her trip and she spent six months working prolifically, depicting the people, whom she greatly admired, their customs and life. The Macquarie Galleries held a solo show in 1929 of her Samoan work, which was a great success.

She returned to London in 1930 and had a joint exhibition with Roy de Maistre in Paris in 1931. She married British sculptor, Denis Dunlop, in 1932. In 1938 she wrote an illustrated book, ‘They Call Them Savages’ about her time in Samoa. In 1942 she had a daughter, and in March 1956, after a prolonged illness, she died in Hampstead, London. [information from Caroline White, 17 July 2020]

Last Updated

15 Feb 2022