Alfred Neville Lewis (South African, 1895-1972)
Two Sisters from Pondoland
signed 'Neville Lewis' (upper right)
oil on linen
61.1 x 51.1cm (24 1/16 x 20 1/8in).
(unframed)
Footnotes:
Provenance
Artist's collection;
A private collection.

Born and educated in Cape Town, Alfred Neville Lewis (1895-1972) moved to England in 1912 to pursue his art studies. He first trained under Stanhope Forbes in the art colony of Newlyn in Cornwall, before undertaking formal studies at the Slade School of Art, London. He served in the British army in France, Belgium, and Italy between 1916 and 1918. Following the First World War, he set up a studio in London and established his reputation as a skilled portraitist.

Neville Lewis travelled to South Africa on a number of occasions before ultimately settling in Stellenbosch in the late 1940s. During earlier visits to his native country, he embarked on painting trips to rural areas with the intention of depicting the people he encountered. It is likely that Two Sisters from Pondoland was executed during one of these trips or in Neville Lewis's London studio using materials drafted in situ.

In Studio Encounters: Some Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter (1963), the artist recalls his experiences painting near Umtata (present-day Mthatha). He stayed at traders' stores which stocked a wide variety of products from blankets, boots, and saddles to tins of jam, mouthorgans, and tobacco. Neville Lewis explains, '[t]hese stores are crowded all through the day with men and women' (1963: p. 60). He drew upon members of this local community to serve as his models: 'I spent about a week at [the store] and explored the country around and did quite a few more paintings and drawings of a variety of subjects: mothers sitting feeding their babies, heads of children, groups of Africans and head studies of both men and women. I worked out in the blazing sun and sometimes in their huts' (1963: p. 66).

Two Sisters from Pondoland depicts two girls draped in the brick-red blankets typically worn by the Bantu people. Set against a verdant green backdrop with grey-blue mountains visible in the distance, the sisters exude a quiet confidence. The younger girl's head is turned in profile while the older girl gazes out from the canvas – a compositional variety that demonstrates the artist's aptitude for capturing his subjects in different poses. Their necks are adorned with jewellery crafted from the coils of metal wire sold in the traders' stores that Neville Lewis stayed in during his travels. Executed using expressive brushstrokes, the artist's charismatic depiction of his subjects demonstrates his mastery of the portraiture form.

Bibliography
Neville Lewis, Studio Encounters: Some Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter (Cape Town: Tafelberg-Uitgewers, 1963).