Henry Lewis (artist)
Henry Lewis | |
|---|---|
Lewis c. 1856, from a portrait by John B. Irving II | |
| Born | January 12, 1819 |
| Died | 1904 (aged 84–85) |
| Notable work | Lewis' Mammoth Panorama of the Mississippi (Great National Work) |
"Professor" Henry Lewis (1819–1904) was a British-born, self-taught American artist and showman, best known for his paintings of the American West.
Art historian John William Reps credited Lewis with capturing an important historical record of the Mississippi River area in the 1840s, saying that "much of what we know about the character of these raw, new communities of the frontier comes from the images Lewis created," which he called "unsurpassed in pictorial interest and antiquarian value."