Maud Lewis

Art Brokerage: Maud Lewis Canadian Artist: b. 1903-1970. Maud Lewis (March 7, 1903 – July 30, 1970) was a Canadian folk artist from Nova Scotia. She remains one of Canada's best known folk artists. Maud Lewis painted outdoor scenes, like Cape Island boats bobbing on the water, horses pulling sleigh, skaters, portraits of dogs, cats, deer, birds, and cows. Her paintings were inspired by childhood memories of the landscape and people around Yarmouth and South Ohio as well as Digby locations such as Point Prim and Bayview. Christmas cards and calendars also provided influence. Most of her paintings are quite small - often no larger than eight by ten inches, although she is known to have done at least five paintings 24 inches by 36 inches. The size was limited by the extent she could move her arms. She used mostly wallboard and tubes of Tinsol, an oil-based paint. Lewis's technique consisted of first coating the board with white, then drawing an outline and then applying paint directly out of the tube. She never blended or mixed colors. Between 1945 and 1950, people began to stop at Lewis's Marshalltown home on Highway No. 1, the main highway and tourist route in western Nova Scotia, and buy her paintings for two or three dollars. Only in the last three or four years of Lewis's life did her paintings begin to sell for seven to ten dollars. She achieved national attention as a result of an article in the Toronto-based Star Weekly in 1964 and in 1965 she was featured on CBC-TV's Telescope. Two of Lewis's paintings were ordered by the White House in the 1970s during Richard Nixon's presidency. Unfortunately, her arthritis deprived her from completing many of the orders that resulted from the national exposure. Listings wanted.