<I>Untitled</I>
date: label: Date
content: 2021
name: label: Created by
content: Spencer Lewis
notes: label: Caption
content: Spencer Lewis is an artist best known for his abstract and colorful paintings executed on cardboard or jute (a plant fiber used to make burlap). His work explores the process of gestural painting expressed through heavily worked pigmented strokes and tactile canvases. Although his work is largely abstract, Lewis imbues the brown foundations of his canvases with a multiplicity of meanings. “I loved both the cardboard, and now the jute, for being brown,” he says. “Both surfaces Brown like me. I think of the brown paper bag test, and just one drop of blood, and 3/5ths of a person. … I don’t need to define brown, but a friend mentioned that the works made him think of ‘passing.’ … It was such a brilliant insight, and for now I’ll leave it at that.”
label: Description
content: An abstract painting of oil and acrylic on jute. Layers of gestural strokes in shades of red, blue, orange, purple, lavender, green and white stand out in a colorful burst against the field of brown jute. The painting is signed and dated by the artist on the back stretcher.
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Abstraction
label: Topic
content: Art
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
label: Exhibition
content: Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience.
label: On View
content: NMAAHC (1400 Constitution Ave NW), National Mall Location, Culture/Fourth Floor, 4 052
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2022.15
objectType: label: Type
content: paintings
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: © Spencer Lewis
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Oil, acrylic and enamel on jute
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D: 96 3/4 × 68 1/4 × 2 3/4 in. (245.7 × 173.4 × 7 cm)