LEWIS, Charles James

1830 - 1892

Charles James Lewis was baptised at St Giles, Camberwell, London on 6 October 1830, son of Charles Thomas Lewis (1798-20 April 1884), a clerk at the bank of England, and his wife Sarah Hyde née Bennett (1805-1872), who married at Tottenham, London on 11 June 1825. In 1851, Charles was a 20-year-old student in painting, living at 17 Nelson Square, Camberwell with his 52-year-old married father Charles and a 64-year-old 'unmarried' Sarah Lewis. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art in 1853, a portrait of 'Miss Shelton', Mary Ann Matilda Hammond Shelton (1831-1908), whom he married at Camberwell in 1854. In 1871, a 50-year-old landscape artist, living at 2 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea with his 48-year-old wife 'Marian' and seven of their children. A popular and prolific painter of genre and domestic scenes, he often painted on a smaller scale depicting natural and attractive scenes featuring children as the focal point. A regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy 1853-1890, and at the British Institution, the Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, Grosvenor Gallery, and the New Gallery amongst others. He was elected a member of the Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1882, two years before it became 'Royal' and was a member and exhibitor at the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1890-1891 exhibiting in 1890 from 67 Wynstanley Gardens, Kensington, London five watercolours, 'Waiting for the Ferry', 'A Wet Evening', 'A Hay Field', 'A Fisherman's Anchorage' and 'Harvesting' and in 1891 two oils, 'Balmy Sleep' and 'An Old Mill' and three watercolours, 'A Gray Summer's Day', 'The Garden Gate' and 'A Village on the Ouse, moon rising'. Charles James Lewis died at River View, 122 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London on 28 January 1892, aged 61 and buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Woking.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from Nelson Square, Peckham
1853 803 Miss Shelton
from 2 Barnard's Inn, Holborn
1855 117 Again returns the day of Sacred Rest
from Cheyne House, Chelsea
1858 520 Reading Bluebeard
1859 59 A Study
         150 Retrospective
         252 The Mill Stream
1861 80 A Cottage Door
1862 155 'Break-Break-Break'
         605 Old Letters
1863 209 Friends
         373 Ambleteuse
1864 579 A Thames Lock: Summertime
1865 579 'And bow'ry hollows crowned'
1866 62 'With many a curve of my door'
         98 A Berkshire Mill Race
         192 Spring Time
1867 105 A Kentish Mill
         136 An Autumn Sheepfold
         169 The Meal Sacks on a Whiten'd Floor
         337 Gloaming
1868 679 Sunday Morning
1869 454 A Woodland Ramble
         747 Barley Harvest
1870 247 'move eastwards happy earth'
         512 'O glide for a stream for ever so'
         1001 Our Holiday
1871 473 A Shady Stream
         1084 An Oat Field: Wemille Artois
1872 527 'glide gently, thus forever glide'
         1095 The Hay Field
1873 613 The Water Lane
         1107 A Berkshire Mill Race
1874 1018 Evening's Light of Amber
1875 85 'that yew tree shade'
         436 'that in thy waters may be seen'
         462 'glide gently, thus forever glide'
         498 A Kentish Mill: Evening
1876 54 A Thames Backwater: Evening
         950 The Thames in June: before the mowing
1881 599 A Barley Field
from River View, 122 Cheyne Walk, Southwest London
1883 706 'now came still evening on and twilight grey'
1884 122 ?
         862 'O glide fine stream, for ever so!
1886 88 A Hayfield
1887 1049 Battersea Reach, from Turner's last dwelling place
1888 1132 A Thames Lock: Evening
1889 244 Neighbouring Colonies
1890 1211 Ambleteuse 'Artois - watercolour

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Works by This Artist