Maud Kathleen Lewis

Canadian (1903 - 1970)

Maud Kathleen Lewis was a Canadian painter.
Based on ArtValue.ca records, Maud Kathleen Lewis's estimated art value is C$50,000 (*)

Maud Kathleen Lewis's work could be available for sale at public auction with prices in the range of C$25,000 - C$100,000, or even much higher.

From ArtValue.ca records, the highest price paid at auction for a mixed media work attributed to Maud Kathleen Lewis (1903-1970) was C$90,000 - paid for "Car Ride through Town" at Cowley Abbott in Toronto on Wed, Jun 15, 2022.
ArtValue.ca has 469 auction art sale records for their mixed media results, with prices in the range of C$25,000 to C$100,000.

Heffel Auction House Biography and Notes

Born in South Ohio, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia, Maud Lewis is renowned for her bright paintings of Maritime rural life. Having contracted polio, and suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, Lewis left school at the age of 14 and lived a confined but happy life at home. She began her artistic career by painting Christmas cards with her mother that they sold on the streets of Yarmouth. Following the death of her parents, Lewis moved to Marshalltown, Digby County, Nova Scotia to live with her aunt. It was there that she met her future husband, Everett Lewis, a fish peddler. They married in 1938 and moved into his small cabin. She continued to paint cards and began to paint scenes on wood panels. Everett often took Maud with him while selling fish and would promote her artwork to his customers. With his encouragement, Lewis began to produce more paintings. Her work grew in popularity, and buyers began to come directly to her home to acquire her paintings. Despite her lack of formal training, Lewis’s depictions of rural life, animals and landscapes, drawn from her everyday experiences, have an irresistible charm and vitality. She often used oil paints straight from the tube and rarely mixed her pigments, and her colourful work expressed the essence of Maritime life. Her work gained popularity to the point that she was featured in numerous newspapers, such as the Moncton Times, the Atlantic Advocate and the Star Weekly, and she also starred in a CBC-TV Telescope program in 1965. In 1967, her work was shown at the Centennial Exhibition of Primitive Art in New Brunswick at Beaverbrook House, St. John. Prominent collectors of her work include R.L. Stanfield, the former premier of Nova Scotia and Richard Nixon, the former President of the United States. Her paintings still hang in the White House and the Legislative Building of Nova Scotia. Lewis passed away at the Digby General Hospital at the age of 67 in 1970. She has become one of Canada’s most well-known and endearing folk artists. The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia has a large collection of her paintings, and installed her original house in the gallery as part of a permanent exhibition of her work. In 2016, a film was released on her life entitled Maudie which was screened at film festivals in Canada, the United States and Europe to positive critical reviews, and which has brought more awareness to the work of this Maritime treasure.

(*) Value is calculated as an average of the top mixed media sale records from ArtValue.ca database.
This information is not intended to substitute professional advice.
To estimate the value of a specific artwork created by Maud Kathleen Lewis, follow some of the advice from our Valuating art page, or contact an art specialist if our automated estimate value is greater than C$2,500.