Martin Lewis was born in 1881 in Castlemaine, Australia, located in the center of the gold fields. Throughout his career, Lewis remained a realist, in the face of the contemporaneous trend towards abstraction. Edward Hopper and Martin Lewis were lifelong friends and influenced each other’s work. Hopper even asked Lewis for advice to improve his etching technique after viewing Lewis’ first known print. Known best as a talented printmaker, Lewis was also adept with painting rural landscapes in Connecticut and especially the New York urban scene. Having rejected self-promotion, Lewis’ work was largely overshadowed by French Modernism, color prints, and Abstract Expressionism, despite his immense ability.

At 15 years old, the Australia-born artist escaped from home in fear that he was a burden to his destitute father. He settled in an artist community overlooking Sydney Harbor and studied at the Julian Ashton Art School. In search of greater opportunities, Lewis departed for San Francisco around 1900, when he began painting decorations for William McKinley’s presidential campaign. After a year, he moved to New York, where he worked as a commercial artist until 1928. Stylistically based off the Tonalists, Impressionists, and the Ashcan School, Lewis began painting watercolors and oils, but moved towards printmaking around 1910, a field in which he was known as one of the best. Between 1920 and 1922, Lewis travelled to Japan where he studied art and culture. The period of 1925 through 1935 was his most productive, as Lewis created 81 of his 148 known prints. He lived in Connecticut for a few years during the Great Depression, but preferred the bustling streets of New York, returning in 1936. Here, he lived out his career teaching at the Art Students League and continuing to create drawings and prints until his death in 1962.