The Lewis Collection at The DuSable Museum of African American History
In 1968 Chester Arthur Lewis, the youngest son of Henry Jackson Lewis, bequeathed forty-seven of his father's original ink on paper drawings (mostly unpublished editorial cartoons) to the DuSable Museum of African America History in Chicago. Lewis was a late-nineteenth-century artist, engraver, and illustrator regarded today as the first African American political cartoonist. What Lewis left behind is more than fine art or vintage propaganda. His art recalls an age when images of Blacks by Blacks served Blacks in strategies of resistance and uplift. Lewis’s drawings also give us a rare glimpse of an era of lynchings and domestic terrorism. It was an era which gave rise to the NAACP, the civil rights movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and perhaps Afrofuturism. Many of Lewis’ illustrations, cartoons, caricatures, and column headings in the DuSable collection were conceived of, carved into woodcuts and/or chalk plates, then printed and published during Lewis’s tenure as an artist and engraver at the Indianapolis based illustrated weekly newspaper, The Freeman, between February 1889 and April 1891. Other works in this collection, however, were neither printed nor published in the artist’s lifetime. This site is dedicated to understanding the original context of the forty-seven original ink on paper drawings held by the DuSable Museum of African American History. What follows is a timeline of the art and events that shaped lewis' practice from the earliest know report of his artistic activity in 1871 to his death in 1891.
Garland Martin Taylor
Sculptor
In 1968 Chester Arthur Lewis, the youngest son of Henry Jackson Lewis, bequeathed forty-seven of his father's original ink on paper drawings (mostly unpublished editorial cartoons) to the DuSable Museum of African America History in Chicago. Lewis was a late-nineteenth-century artist, engraver, and illustrator regarded today as the first African American political cartoonist. What Lewis left behind is more than fine art or vintage propaganda. His art recalls an age when images of Blacks by Blacks served Blacks in strategies of resistance and uplift. Lewis’s drawings also give us a rare glimpse of an era of lynchings and domestic terrorism. It was an era which gave rise to the NAACP, the civil rights movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and perhaps Afrofuturism. Many of Lewis’ illustrations, cartoons, caricatures, and column headings in the DuSable collection were conceived of, carved into woodcuts and/or chalk plates, then printed and published during Lewis’s tenure as an artist and engraver at the Indianapolis based illustrated weekly newspaper, The Freeman, between February 1889 and April 1891. Other works in this collection, however, were neither printed nor published in the artist’s lifetime. This site is dedicated to understanding the original context of the forty-seven original ink on paper drawings held by the DuSable Museum of African American History. What follows is a timeline of the art and events that shaped lewis' practice from the earliest know report of his artistic activity in 1871 to his death in 1891.
Garland Martin Taylor
Sculptor
Timeline of Possible Dates of Birth:
1840
The 1880 US Census recorded H. J. Lewis as 40 years old.
1845
His death certificate from April 10, 1891 recorded H. J. Lewis as 46 years old.
National Archives, Washington DC, Lavinia Lewis' Widow's Pension application files
1846
The 1870 US Census recorded H. J. Lewis as 24 years old.
1850
A journalist referred to H. J. Lewis as a "colored youth."
March 14, 1872, The Little Rock Daily Republican
1852
According to Henry and Lavinia Dixon Lewis' Marriage Certificate o from April 20, 1874, the artist was 22 years old.
National Archives, Washington DC, Lavinia Lewis' Widow's Pension application files
1855
According to a resident of Pine Bluff, AR and supposed acquaintance, in 1879 H. J. Lewis was 25 years old.
January 4, 1879 The Weekly Louisianian, "A Colored Artist"
1858
According to H. J. Lewis in 1889 he was 31 years old.
November, 24 1889 Indianapolis Journal
Timeline of Images & Events:
1869
August, 21
The Arkansas Freeman, founded by Tabbs Gross, is the first African American owned newspaper in Arkansas
1870
Summer
"The Arkansas Freeman" suspends operation.
1870
H.J. Lewis identified himself as a professional artist.
NOTE: the census taker did not record Lewis as blind.
US Census
1871
September
H. J. Lewis convicted of forgery by the Jefferson Co. Criminal Court and sentenced to the state penitentiary in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Little Rock Daily Republican, March 14, 1872
1871
October 7
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper published “Scenes in Cotton Land”
As compared to Lewis’ unpublished ink on paper drawing held at the DuSable Museum of African American History
1968.1.36
1872
February 2
H. J. Lewis purchased $350 plot of land from William P. & Emily Grace.
Jefferson County, Deed Book N-2, page 592, Arkansas History Commission, microfilm
1872
March 1
H. J. Lewis pardoned from Arkansas State Penitentiary
The Little Rock Daily Republican
1872
March 14
On H. J. Lewis
The Little Rock Daily Republican/The Morning Republican
1872
March 14
Frederick Douglas
The New National Era (Douglas' newspaper)
via The Little Rock Daily Republican/The Morning Republican
"The Hon. Joseph Brooks is one of those disorganizers Who, when they find they Cannot get into office, do their utmost to try and destroy the party, while at the same time professing allegiance to it. His career has been such as to disgust all true republicans In Arkansas, and at the same time To gain The highest encomiums of the Ku klux democracy."
|
1874
April & May
The Brooks/Baxter War of Arkansas
The newly elected Gov. Elisha Baxter and his opponent Joseph Brookes battle for control of the Governors' mansion and Statehouse of Little Rock, Arkansas. Both politicians raised approximately 300 state militiamen, many of whom were African American volunteers from Lewis' hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
1874
April 20
Henry Jackson and Lavinia Dixon married in Jefferson County, Pine Bluff, AR.
National Archives, Lavinia Lewis' Widow's Pension File
1875
April 10
Newspaper Engraving:
Joseph Kepler's "Squeezed Out" in Harper's Weekly
(SEE: H. J. Lewis' 1968.1.36, DuSable Museum of African American History for similar imagery)
c. 1875
BIRTH: 1st child, John W. Lewis
1876
July 15
Harper's Weekly
Sol Eytinge Jr., "De Jubilee Am Come" pg. 580.
1876
July 15
Harper's Weekly
On Sol Eytinge Jr.'s "De Jubilee Am Come" pg. 580.
1876
October 30
BIRTH: 2nd child, Richard Augustus Lewis
National Archives: Lavinia Lewis' Widow's Pension June 1917
1878
October 18
BIRTH: 3rd child, Lillian Estella Lewis
National Archives: Lavinia Lewis' Widow's Pension June 1917
1879
January 4
H. J. Lewis sketched Scene at Pine Bluff in the style of a Birdseye View
Harper's Weekly
1879
February 1
The Weekly Louisianian
"A Colored Artist"
on H. J. Lewis' art in Harper's Weekly
1879
August 16
Harper's Weekly pg. 652
H. J. Lewis sketched "En Route for Kansas - Fleeing From The Yellow Fever".
for artist Sol Eytinge
1879
January 29
Puck
New York
c.1890
Detail of 1968.1.31,
The DuSable Museum of African American History
1880
United States Census
Lewis was recorded as blind in this 1880 census but not in the census of 1870
1882
H. J. Lewis
Portrait of Thomas Merriweather Dansby
1887
April 4
The Western Appeal, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1887
Summer
The earliest know published woodcuts by H. J. Lewis.
Arkansas Daily Gazette, July 3 thru August 9, 1887
1889
April 20
Huntsville Gazette, Huntsville, Alabama
Jesse Chisolm Duke reported as managing editor, Pine Bluff Hornet
1889
June 8
Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapoli,s Indiana
Edward E. Cooper hired Moses L. Tucker to join the art department of the Indianapolis Freeman
SEE: 1890.02.01
1889
June 8
Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapoli,s Indiana
Edward E. Cooper hired Edward H. Lee (probably as an independent because Lee was a well established Chicago artist, art instructor, and landlord) to join Lewis in the art department of the Indianapolis Freeman
1889
July 13
Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapoli,s Indiana
Edward E. Cooper published H. J. Lewis' self portrait. Lewis was the first artist/engraver to join the art department of the Indianapolis Freeman. In Lewis' own words, “I came to Indianapolis,” said he, “in January, last, to work at the Freeman office in making wood cuts, and most of the cartoons published in that paper, until recently, were made by me as were the engravings generally.”!
1889
November 9
Henry Jackson Lewis no longer employed at the Freeman
Cleveland Gazette, Cleveland, Ohio
1889
November 9
Henry Jackson Lewis' first minstrel-ized caricature.
1889
November 9
Henry Jackson Lewis reportedly terminated his full time employment at The Freeman
Cleveland Gazette, Cleveland, Ohio
1889
November 9
The Freeman's editor Edward Cooper curates a Moses Tucker caricature campaign attacking H. J. Lewis & Gun Wa's relationship.
1889
November28
The Freeman's editor Edward Cooper curates a Moses Tucker caricature campaign attacking H. J. Lewis & Gun Wa's relationship.
1890
November 24
Indianapolis Journal.
1890
February 1
Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapoli,s Indiana
Moses L. Tucker's caricature of Edward E. Cooper, editor of the Freeman.
(Some scholars have wrongly attributed this caricature of Cooper to H. J. Lewis.)
January 1889 - May, 1889
H. J. Lewis' published hedcuts (sp)
Indianapolis Freeman, Indianapoli,s Indiana
c.1890
November
H. J. Lewis's self portrait as an independent artist in his studio on Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis. It is possible that this is the same space in which the interview took place on November 24, 1889
(see 1968.1.7 below)
If Lewis left The Freeman in protest of Cooper’s new pictorial policy this would explain why we find a dispirited Lewis in his unpublished self-portrait most likely created around 1891 (fig. 7). Set in his Washington St. studio this portrait of the artist is vastly different from his The Freeman debut on 13 July 1889. Whereas Lewis’s published portrait presented like valorous poetry, Lewis unpublished piece reads like a requiem. The once larger than life, optimistic artist supported by a full array of signs and symbols of progress gave way to a gangling, secluded, and weary laborer propped up on a slanted work stand. Lewis ignores the viewer; but the caricatured baseball player beneath his brush locks eyes with us—deliberately. For when our eyes follow the single guide attached to the right side of the slanted stand, we find a wood block carved with the image of one man sizing up another. On the floor at Lewis’s feet we find a book, possibly the same book Lewis drew opened to the sciences of fine art and engraving in his The Freeman debut; only now the book is closed and stowed away.
Garland Martin Taylor
|
1891
April 11
H. J. Lewis' obituary published in The Freeman
1891
April 10
The Sun, Indianapolis, IN
H. J. Lewis' obituary
1891
April 28
H. J. Lewis' Death Certificate
Death Certificate, Henry Jackson Lewis, Board of Health, Indianapolis, Indiana, 28 Apr. 1891.
Thank You.
Site powered by Weebly. Managed by FatCow