1. Maud Kathleen Lewis was a Canadian folk artist from Nova Scotia.
32 Facts About Maud Lewis
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Maud Lewis lived most of her life in poverty in a small house in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia.
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Maud Lewis achieved national recognition in 1964 and 1965 for her cheerful paintings of landscapes, animals and flowers, which offer a nostalgic and optimistic vision of her native province.
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Maud Lewis remains one of Canada's most celebrated folk artists.
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Maud Lewis's works are displayed at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, as well as her restored house, whose walls she adorned with her art.
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Maud Lewis was born in South Ohio, Nova Scotia, the daughter of John and Agnes Dowley.
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Maud Lewis was born with birth defects and ultimately developed rheumatoid arthritis, which reduced her mobility, especially in her hands.
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Maud Lewis' father was a blacksmith and harness maker who owned a harness shop in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
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Maud Lewis's business enabled Lewis to enjoy a middle-class childhood.
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Maud Lewis was introduced to art by her mother, who instructed her in the making of watercolour Christmas cards to sell.
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Maud Lewis began her artistic career by selling hand-drawn and painted Christmas cards.
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Maud Lewis worked as the watchman at the county Poor Farm.
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Maud Lewis used the house as her studio, while Everett took care of the housework.
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Maud Lewis accompanied her husband on his daily rounds peddling fish door-to-door, bringing along Christmas cards she had painted.
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Maud Lewis sold the cards for five cents each, the same price her mother had charged for the cards she had made when Maud was a girl.
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When Everett was hired as a night watchman at the neighbouring Poor Farm in 1939, Maud Lewis began selling her Christmas cards and paintings directly from their home.
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Maud Lewis expanded her range, using other surfaces for painting, such as pulp boards, cookie sheets, and Masonite.
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Maud Lewis was a prolific artist and painted on more or less every available surface in their tiny home: walls, doors, breadboxes, and even the stove.
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Maud Lewis completely covered the simple patterned commercial wallpaper with sinewy stems, leaves, and blossoms.
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Maud Lewis used bright colours in her paintings, and her subjects were often flowers or animals, including oxen teams, horses, birds, deer, and cats.
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Maud Lewis's paintings were inspired by childhood memories of the landscape and people around Yarmouth and South Ohio, as well as Digby locations such as Point Prim and Bayview.
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Maud Lewis returned to the same subjects again and again, each time painting them slightly differently.
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Maud Lewis used mostly wallboard and tubes of Tinsol, an oil-based paint.
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Maud Lewis's technique consisted of first coating the board with white, then drawing an outline, and applying paint directly out of the tube.
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Only in the last three or four years of her life did Maud Lewis' paintings begin to sell for seven to ten dollars.
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Maud Lewis achieved national attention as a folk artist following an article in the Toronto-based Star Weekly in 1964.
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Two of Maud Lewis' paintings were ordered by the White House in the 1970s during Richard Nixon's presidency.
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Maud Lewis died in Digby on July 30,1970, from pneumonia.
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Maud Lewis was recognized as the provincial Heritage Day honouree for 2019, and a limited edition postage stamp featuring her art was released.
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Maud Lewis's paintings were featured on three stamps issued on November 2,2020, at Digby, Nova Scotia.
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Maud Lewis' paintings have sold at auction for ever increasing prices.
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Screenwriter Sherry White wrote Maudie, a feature dramatic film about Lewis that made its Canadian debut at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.