DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Sept. 21, 2009) - Florida Highwaymen artist R.L. Lewis this month captivated an audience of nearly 250 people who came to witness a demonstration of the painter’s method, during the season kick-off of the Daytona State College Foundation’s Wisdom in Senior Education program.
In little more than an hour, Lewis produced an idyllic old-Florida landscape that has become the signature of the iconic Florida Highwaymen, a group of 26 largely self-taught African American painters who emerged from Central Florida during the late 1950s and ‘60s.
Demonstrating the “wet-on-wet” method that allowed the Florida Highwaymen to quickly produce brilliantly colored landscape paintings, Lewis presented a down-home charm and ease to the audience gathered at Daytona State’s Mori Hosseini Center, evidence of his 30-plus year career as a Brevard County public school art teacher following his peak years as a Highwayman artist.
Holding out the tools of his craft to the audience, he said, “Let me introduce you to my ‘committee’. Many hands make light work.” There was a large hogs-hair brush used to paint broad areas of his scenes, a liner brush for twigs and branches, a pallet knife to remove excess paint, a sponge to give texture to foliage and plenty of paper towels to keep things tidy. “These tools talk to me,” he lightheartedly explained. “They feel very important when I give them a job to do.”
The Florida Highwaymen is a story that blends the racist attitudes of the past, the nostalgia for a once unspoiled Florida, so-called “outsider art” and the entrepreneurial spirit of the original 26 painters who sought to rise above the meager existence offered by the agricultural and citrus industries that was a common vocation for many African American workers in Florida at the time. Art to the Highwaymen was a craft, a way to earn a living. At the time, no gallery would show the work of unknown, self-taught African-American artists. Instead the Highwaymen painted from their garages and backyards on inexpensive Upson board, framed their work with crown molding, then traveled Florida’s East Coast on weekends to sell their paintings to hotels, offices, businesses and tourists for roughly $25 a piece.
They were a prolific group. Volume was a key to their survival as artists. Their technique allowed them to produce brilliantly colored landscape paintings quickly and efficiently. It is estimated that more than 200,000 of their original works exist, according to Daytona State Photography Professor Gary Monroe, whose research and books about the Florida Highwaymen triggered a renaissance of demand for their work in recent years. The Highwaymen were inducted into Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004. Today, their original art can command thousands of dollars.
Lewis’ workshop was the first of the WISE program’s fall season. The Foundation created the WISE program to provide continuing education and cultural enrichment activities to its members.
For information on joining WISE or attending other workshops, please contact (386) 506-3195 or visit the Daytona State College Foundation’s Web site at www.DaytonaState.edu/foundation.
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**images available upon request**
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Glyn Johnston, Vice President, Marketing, Communications & Events, (386) 506-4499, johnstg@DaytonaState.edu
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