Lot 8

The Artist
Thence by descent

In the 1950s, a remarkable group of paintings by the little-known artist Sara Lewis came to light when her family uncovered them in a pig shed on their Camperdown farm. Left undisturbed for decades, the works were later cleaned and reframed, allowing the artist's story to re-emerge.
The paintings carry with them not only the vision of the artist but also the provenance of place, rooted in the very property where they were created and hidden away.

Sara Lewis had been a student of Jan Hendrik Scheltema, the Dutch-born artist who arrived in Australia in 1888 and soon became known for his rural landscapes and depictions of livestock. Scheltema, often accompanied by his friend and fellow artist Robert Camm, ran 'en plein air' art classes, travelling to his students' family properties across Victoria's Western District. These excursions turned farms into plein air studios, where students could learn directly from the land around them, paddocks, sheds, animals, and the rhythm of country life.
Her paintings feature livestock and the details of working farms, echoing the themes favoured by Scheltema.

Like many female artists of the period, little is recorded about Lewis in art history, yet the rediscovery of her work on the Camperdown farm brings her voice back into the conversation and reminds us how many stories are hidden. Her paintings, once forgotten, now stand as a rare record of plein-air teaching in regional Victoria, capturing not only the influence of Scheltema and Camm but also the artist's own response to the world around her, a vision that is both personal and firmly grounded in the land where she once lived and painted.

Hannah Ryan
Senior Art Specialist