Samella Lewis (born 1924)
Samella Sanders Lewis was born February 27, 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana. According to the Duke University Art Library, Lewis earned her doctorate in 1951 from Ohio University, and became the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in art history and fine art.
As a practicing artist, she cultivated close relationships with several other African-American artists, including Elizabeth Catlett (born 1919), her undergraduate mentor, and Romare Bearden (1914-1988) and produced an important archive resource of African Art. She is currently a professor of art history at Scripps College in Claremont, California, where she became the first tenured African-American professor at the college, and an academic scholarship bears her name.
Information courtesy of Swann Galleries Inc.
Samella Lewis, painter, lithographer, author, and educator, is renowned for her contributions to African American Art and art history. Lewis began her career at Dillard University and transferred to Hampton Institute, where she earned a B.A. in 1945. She completed her graduate studies at Ohio State University and in 1951 became the first African American woman to receive a doctorate in fine arts and art history.
Information courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries, June 2009.