We are now well into the 2022 Christmas Season, so let’s celebrate with Maud Lewis. Who doesn’t love Maud Lewis? The featured book was front and centre at the booth we had at Christmas at the Forum last month. And by far, people picked this bright little item up more than any other book. But, mysteriously, no one bought it! So, it continues to decorate our book room – not a bad thing at all. What follows is the book description we used when we posted the book up on the internet.
Maud Kathleen Lewis (née Dowley; March 7, 1903 – July 30, 1970) was a Canadian folk artist from Nova Scotia. She lived most of her life in poverty in a small house in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia. She 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. Several books, plays and films have been produced about her. She remains one of Canada's most celebrated folk artists. Her works are displayed at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, as well as her restored house, whose walls she adorned with her art. Lewis's paintings have sold at auction for ever increasing prices. On November 30, 2009, A Family Outing sold for C$22,200 at a Bonham's auction in Toronto. Another, A View of Sandy Cove, sold in 2012 for C$20,400. A painting found in 2016 at an Ontario thrift store, Portrait of Eddie Barnes and Ed Murphy, Lobster Fishermen, sold in an online auction for C$45,000. Black Truck, depicting the eponymous vehicle driving on road bordered with flowers, sold at auction in Toronto for C$350,000 in May 2022.
From the blurb of Christmas with Maud Lewis – Maud Lewis has become one of Canada’s favourite folk artists, and her buoyant winter pictures of nature, pets, farm animals, and people at work and play are among her most charming. Her hands were twisted with arthritis, but Maud earned her living by painting Christmas cards and selling them from her tiny, gaily painted one- room house beside the highway near Digby, Nova Scotia. Maud’s vision of Christmas embraces skaters sliding every which way, passengers leaning over the box of a horse-drawn sleigh, smiling oxen in their best harness, and bluebirds beside their snow-covered house. Lance Woolaver’s parent began collecting paintings and Christmas cards by Maud Lewis in the 1950s, and they commissioned a great many paintings. Lance Woolaver himself first wrote about Maud Lewis in 1975, and since then he has become the authority on her life and works. The paintings in Christmas with Maud Lewis are from the large collection of the Woolaver family.
This book, 116 pages is in fine condition in a fine dust jacket that is in a protective mylar wrap.
Happy Holidays – see you in 2023!