Harry Emerson Lewis was born in Hutchinson, Kansas on February 28, 1892. He studied art early in life with his father Edward Henry Lewis (known as Edel in art circles). The younger Lewis attended high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan and furthered his art training at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1912-13.

After serving as an instructor of camouflage in the Army in World War One, he spent three years studying art in Florence, Milan, Rome, and the Sorbonne in Paris.

Returning to the United States, he worked for awhile in the Boston studio of Alexander Robinson before entering the Art Institute of Chicago for further study. He later taught there until his move to southern California in 1924.

Lewis liv...