Norman Lewis (1909–1979) wrestled with his role as an artist who was African-American. “I wanted to be above criticism,” he once said. “So that my work didn’t have to be discussed in terms of the fact that I’m black.” Born in Harlem, the son of Bermudian immigrants, Lewis traveled the world in his early 20s and began to study art upon his return to New York City. His early paintings were social realist, depicting scenes of urban struggle, but, he wrote, “I became aware of the fact that this didn’t move anybody. It didn’t make things better.” He moved on to Abstract Expressionism, guided by the rhythmic patterns and leaps of jazz. This exhibition at Michael Rosenfeld pulls together work from Lewis’s career of over four decades, and focuses on how music served as a sustaining inspiration—from 1935, when he was a founding member of the Harlem Artists Guild, through the 1960s, when he helped found the Spiral group, and beyond. Lewis was influenced by all kinds of music: Bach and Bob Marley, Duke Ellington and Joni Mitchell. —Maggie Turner

Every Saturday afternoon from two to five P.M. throughout the run of the exhibition, DJ Adrian (Adrian Yin Michna) from STARROCK Productions will be in the gallery, curating a setlist using Lewis’s records.