Artist: Norman Lewis

Originally a social realist (his early works depicted bread lines, evictions, police brutality), Lewis converted to Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s, making him the only African American in the first generation of that art style. He drew inspiration from Chinese, Japanese, and African art, as well as fellow Abstract Expressionists Wassily Kandinsky and Mark Tobey. The greatest inspiration for his art, however, remains social inequalities at the time (in particular inequality aimed at African Americans) as well as Lewis's own political activism. Though Lewis initially attempted to use art to initiate some form of social awareness, in his later years his artistic focus turned mostly to simple aesthetics due his realization that art alone cannot induce change.