Clayton Scott Lewis (March 15, 1915 – September 15, 1995) was an American artist known primarily for his work as an envelope artist and jewelry designer.

Life and career

Clayton Lewis began his professional life as a furniture designer in the late 1940s with his firm, Claywood Designs, which led to coverage in magazines such as

Progressive Architecture The Progressive Architecture Awards (P/A Awards) annually recognise risk-taking practitioners and seek to promote progress in the field of architecture. History The editors of ''Progressive Architecture'' magazine hosted the first Progressive Arch ...

and

Interiors ''Interiors'' is a 1978 American drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, and Sam Waterston. Allen's first full ...

. After a rare bone disease put him in the hospital, and with a young family to support, in 1950, he was hired as general manager of the

Herman Miller Herman Miller, officially MillerKnoll, Inc., is an American company that produces office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings, including the Aeron chair, Noguchi table, Marshmallow sofa, and the Eames Lounge Chair. Herman Miller is also ...

Furniture Company’s

Venice, California Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed b ...

office. There he helped implement designs by

Charles Eames Charles Ormond Eames Jr. (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) was an American designer, architect and filmmaker. In professional partnership with his spouse Ray Kaiser Eames, he was responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the field of a ...

Ray Eames Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser Eames (née Kaiser; December 15, 1912 – August 21, 1988) was an American artist and designer who worked in a variety of media. In creative partnership with her husband Charles Eames and The Eames Office, she was ...

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several ...

, and George Nelson. After a tenure at Herman Miller, he left his position and moved his family to

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

, in 1953, to open up his own art studio. Following various shows and the subsequent breakup of his marriage in 1962, he moved first to Nevada City in 1963, and then to the

Point Reyes Peninsula Point Reyes (, meaning "Point of the Kings") is a prominent cape and popular Northern California tourist destination on the Pacific coast. Located in Marin County, it is approximately west-northwest of San Francisco. The term is often applied ...

in 1964, where he designed a large collection of sculpture jewelry while working with Judy Perlman. After they disbanded their partnership of Perlman-Lewis in 1973, he continued working on his own as a sculptor, painter, and water colorist. Between 1980 and 1985, he produced over 1000 pieces of

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Schoo ...

, mostly sent to his mother in the final years of her life. The envelopes have been shown in one-man and group shows in San Francisco, Pasadena, and Paris, among other locations. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

;

Metropolitan Museum, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

;

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

;

California Historical Society The California Historical Society (CHS) is the official historical society of California. It was founded in 1871, by a group of prominent Californian intellectuals at Santa Clara University. It was officially designated as the Californian state hi ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

;

Musée de La Poste The Musée de La Poste (La Poste's Museum) is the museum of the French postal operator La Poste. It specialises in the postal history and philately of France. Opened in 1946, the museum has been located on two sites in Paris. The museum was clo ...

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

; among others. For the last 31 years of his life he lived in a group of

Coast Miwok Coast Miwok are an indigenous people that was the second-largest group of Miwok people. Coast Miwok inhabited the general area of modern Marin County and southern Sonoma County in Northern California, from the Golden Gate north to Duncans Point ...

Indian cottages at Lairds Landing, on

Tomales Bay Tomales Bay is a long, narrow inlet of the Pacific Ocean in Marin County in northern California in the United States. It is approximately long and averages nearly wide, effectively separating the Point Reyes Peninsula from the mainland of Mar ...

, fifty miles north of

. There he built a spacious sculpting and painting studio with a substantial foundry to work in. In order to help sustain himself, he worked as a carpenter, fisherman, and boat builder, as well as an artist. Clayton Lewis was born in

Snoqualmie, Washington Snoqualmie ( ) is a city next to Snoqualmie Falls in King County, Washington, United States. It is east of Seattle. Snoqualmie city is home to the Northwest Railway Museum. The population was 10,670 at the 2010 census and an estimated 13,62 ...

and died at his home at Laird’s Landing, Point Reyes National Seashore, California. He was raised in Snoqualmie before moving to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in 1936 to study at the Cornish School for the Arts (later

Cornish College of the Arts Cornish College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art college in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1914. History Cornish College of the Arts was founded in 1914 as the Cornish School of Music, by Nellie Cornish (1876–1956), a teacher of pi ...

). Between 1937 and 1940 he lived in San Francisco, where he studied at the

California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

(later the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

). Clayton Lewis was married to Virginia Harding Lewis from 1942-1962. They had four children, including the composer,

Peter Scott Lewis Peter Scott Lewis (born August 31, 1953 in San Rafael, California) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. Career Lewis's works have been commissioned and/or performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic; Princeton Symphony Orchestra; ...

References

*The Envelope Art & Ardor of Clayton Lewis, Alyson Kuhn, Felt & Wire, May 3, 2010 *Lairds' Bohemian Decades, Jacoba Charles, Point Reyes Light, August 8, 2008 *Museum Gives Hippie Stuff The Acid Test, Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times, Published: December 16, 1999 *Saving Clayton’s Place, Dan Fost, Marin Independent Journal (Feature Story), December 10, 1995 *Artist & Fisherman Clayton Lewis Dies, David Rolland, Point Reyes Light, September, 1995 *Un Americain a Paris: Clayton Lewis, rue Guenegaud, Catherine David, Le Nouvel Observatuer, December 26, 1985 *Les Envelopes De Clayton Lewis, Catherine David, Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, France, June 29, 1984 *The World of Clayton Lewis, J.S. Holliday, Magazine of the California Historical Society, San Francisco, CA (Feature Story), Fall, 1983

External links

Official Web SiteExplore Modern Art , Our Collection , Clayton Lewis , Bed
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Clayton 1915 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters Modern painters Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area San Francisco Art Institute alumni Cornish College of the Arts alumni People from Snoqualmie, Washington 20th-century American male artists