Norman Lewis, “Girl with Yellow Hat” (aka “Woman with Yellow Hat and Yellow Hat”) (1936), oil on burlap, 36 1/2 x 26 in (courtesy of Leslie Lewis and Christina Lewis Halpern from the ...

Norman Lewis’ “The Yellow Hat” [1936] By the late 1940s, his work became increasingly abstract “Phantasy II” [1946], “Tenement I” [1952], “Harlem Turns White” ...

Born in 1908, Lewis was clever, though badly bullied at school. At one point, he was sent away to live with his Welsh aunts, an episode he describes vividly in his memoir, Jackdaw Cake.