Roy Lewis Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1937 -

For years celebrated photographer Roy Lewis has been taking photos documenting the African American experience that have been seen by people both nationally and globally.

Lewis has not only been taking photographs, he has also ventured into film and documentaries. Most recently he was in Chicago to premiere his film about the late Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks. Lewis doesn’t just stop there. His involvement in “The Wall of Respect: Vestiges, Shards, and the Legacy of Black Power” exhibition further confirms his role as a “chronicler of Black Life.”

In 1967, a group of artists formed an organization to bring public art to their African-American community. These works became a worldwide phenomenon or the catalyst redefining how people protested globally. The art created by this group of artists was called “The Wall of Respect,” which was located on a building at 43rd Street and Langley Avenue. This exhibition, which included work by Lewis, was recently displayed at the Chicago Cultural Center.

As a panelist during the opening of the exhibition, Lewis said: “After 50 years the spirit of ‘The Wall of Respect’ still lives. When you walk into the exhibit, you feel as though you just turned the corner at 43rd & Langley and what you heard and read about is there in front of you.” (The Crusader covered the “The Wall of Respect” extensively in its March 17, 2017 edition).

Lewis was born 80 years ago in Natchez, Mississippi, and grew up on a plantation, as his father toiled as a sharecropper. His mother died when he was young, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents. After graduating from high school in 1956, he relocated to Chicago and worked in the subscription department at Johnson Publishing Company. Soon after, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and while still enlisted he purchased his first camera—an old Kodak Brownie.

Lewis mentioned his early exposure to artists like Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava, who co-wrote the 1955 “Sweet Flypaper of Life,” which is a collection of photographs by DeCarava with text by Hughes. He also names the renowned photographer, writer, musician and film director Gordon Parks as an influence. “I was impressed by others, and I wanted to get out into the street and start taking photographs.”