Susanna E. Lewis (1938 – July 15, 2021) was an American

fiber artist Fiber (spelled fibre in British English; from ) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorp ...

, teacher and author known for her contributions to the Art to Wear movement.

Biography and Work

The daughter of an

Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

officer, Lewis received a BA from

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

and an MA from the Teachers College of Columbia University. She later attended the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

. Lewis was active in Art to Wear movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Inspired by Mary Walker Phillips she bought a knitting machine (the Passap Duomatic 5) in 1971 and taught herself, beginning to create hangings and garments in the late 1970s. She is known for her highly decorated textile wearable pieces, a direction she was encouraged to take by Julie Schafler Dale, her gallerist. For instance, the ''Moth Cape'' represented a nightmare, "''wherein a feeling of death enveloped her like the wings of a giant moth''". The weight and shape of the piece meant the wearer could share that experience. Lewis was also an author of knitting books, and contributor to knitting magazines, including ''A Machine Knitter’s Guide To Creating Fabrics'' (with Julia Weissman), considered foundational to the craft, and ''Knitting lace''. She taught at Parsons School of Design about machine knitting in the 1980s.

Collections and exhibitions

Lewis' work can be found in the collections of: * The Philadelphia Museum of Art * The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

*The

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

References

Textile artists from New York (state) American people in knitting Pratt Institute alumni 2021 deaths 1938 births 20th-century American women textile artists 20th-century American textile artists {{Portal bar, Textile Arts, border=no