Maud Lewis

(Canadian, 1903–1970)

Maud Lewis was a Canadian folk artist known for her distinctively flat and brightly colored paintings. Her small-scale depictions of animals and landscapes formed decorative microcosms of rural Canadian life. “As long as I've got a brush in front of me, I'm alright,” she once said. Born Maud Kathleen Dowley on March 7, 1903 in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, the artist spent much of her childhood alone, suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis among other crippling birth defects. Maud’s mother introduced her to watercolors as a child, encouraging her to make Christmas cards to sell. While living in Digby, the artist became involved with a man who left her after she gave birth to a daughter Catherine Dowley. Catherine was later given up for adoption, never meeting her mother again. At 34, the artist married a fish monger named Everett Lewis. The married couple lived in a one-room house in the small village of Marshalltown, for the rest of their lives. Over the following decades, neighbors and passersby began showing up at the Lewis’ home to inquire about her paintings. Never usually selling her paintings for more than a few dollars, she painted diligently up until her death on July 30, 1970 in Digby, Canada. In 2017, the film Maudie was released to general audiences, recounting the late-artist’s biography through a fictional portrayal. Today, her works and tiny house are memorialized in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax.