Joe Lewis
Joe Lewis (Joseph S. Lewis III; born 1953 in New York City) is a post-conceptual non-media specific American artist, musician, writer and art educator. Lewis was co-founding director of Fashion Moda in New York, where he curated and mounted numerous exhibitions and performance events. He also early on has been associated with Colab and ABC No Rio and appeared in the 1982 seminal American hip hop film Wild Style.
Also recorded as Joseph S. Lewis III · Joseph Lewis · Joseph S. Lewis · Joseph Lewis III
Joe Lewis
- Name
- Joe Lewis
- Birth Name
- Joseph S.
- Born
- 1953
- Birthplace
- New York City
- Field
- Digital art, Photography, Performance Art, Art Education, Fashion Moda, African American History, community-based art-making, Digital Dye-sublimation printing, Post-conceptual art
- Awards
- Phi Kappa Phi, Thomas J.
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- photographer · painter · sculptor
- Fields
- digital art
- Education
- Hamilton College · Maryland Institute College of Art
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Joe Lewis (Joseph S. Lewis III; born 1953 in New York City) is a post-conceptual non-media specific American artist, musician, writer and art educator. Lewis was co-founding director of Fashion Moda in New York, where he curated and mounted numerous exhibitions and performance events. He also early on has been associated with Colab and ABC No Rio and appeared in the 1982 seminal American hip hop film Wild Style.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Joe Lewis. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
gnd · 16012170-X · wikidata · Q16185440
In this article
Biography
Biography
Lewis received his bachelor’s in 1975 from Hamilton College, and then his M.F.A. in 1989 from Maryland Institute. He served as a faculty member at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) from 1991 to 1995, and then as chair of the Department of Art at California State University, Northridge from 1995 to 2001. In 2001, he became the Dean of the School of Art & Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. In 2004, he was appointed Dean of the School of Art & Design in the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in New York State. He became the Dean of Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, Irvine in 2010 until resigning. He remains on the faculty of UCI. Currently, he is president of the Noah Purifoy Foundation located in Joshua Tree, California and is on the Board of Directors for Project Hope Alliance (whose mission is to end homelessness) and California Lawyers for the Arts. Lewis has been active in the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, the College Art Association, Bronx Museum of the Arts and has written art criticism for Art in America, Contemporânea, LA Weekly and Artforum.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Joe Lewis • Birth Name — Joseph S. Lewis III • Born — 1953 • Birthplace — New York City • Field — Digital art, Photography, Performance Art, Art Education, Fashion Moda, African American History, community-based art-making, Digital Dye-sublimation printing, Post-conceptual art • Awards — Phi Kappa Phi, Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Academy of American Poets Award, National Endowment for the Arts, Design Annual Award of Excellence for Public Service Communication Arts
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Works and production
Works and production
The following works and productions are recorded by name or by count.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Joe Lewis was born in New York City.
Birthplace
New York City.
Birth place
Collections
• Museum of Modern Art, New York • Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem New York • Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Cincinnati • Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles • Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas • University of Colorado Boulder Art Museum, Boulder, Colorado
Awards, commissions & fellowships
• 2017 Paradise AIR, Matsudo City, Chiba, Japan • 2016 Fragrance Research Fellow, Soley Organics, Reykjavík, Iceland • 2015 Fljótstunga Residency Grant, Iceland • 2011 Named Orange County’s Hot 25, OC Metro Magazine • 2011 Curatorial Grant, Let’s Get Lost: Polaroids form the Coast LAX Airport, Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles • 2008 Inducted into Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society • 2008 Deutsche Bank Fellow Photography Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts • 1998 Listed in Who’s Who in American Art • 1996 Award of Excellence, Design Annual, Public Service, Communication Arts • 1995 Commission, California Towers Project, Riverside, CA • 1993 National Endowment for the Arts, Exhibitions Grant, Hillwood Museum, Long Island University, NY • 1992 Commission, Art for Rail Transit, METRO/BLUE LINE, LACTC, Los Angeles, CA • 1999 Lead Artist, Commission, Chandler Outdoor Gallery Project, 4/5ths of a mile of murals produced in the Chandler Corridor, 14 artists and a local middle school, North Hollywood Community Redevelopment Agency, CA • 1991 Maryland State Arts Council, Fellowship, New Genres • 1990 Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Artist in Residence Grant • 1989–90 Commission, Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture, Baltimore, MD • 1988–89 Ford Foundation Fellowship • 1987 Listed in Outstanding Young Men of America • 1983 National Endowment for the Arts, Urban Studies Fellow • 1982 National Endowment for the Arts, Conceptual Art, Fellowship C.A.P.S., Multi-Media Fellowship • 1976 American Music Fellow, Salzburg Seminar, Austria • 1975 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Academy of American Poets Award
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Sculpture
6,174 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Joe BrownArtist
- Joe ColomboArtist
- Joe FafardArtist
- Joe FunkArtist
- Joe LycettArtist
- Joe TilsonArtist
- Joël MartelArtist
- Joel Tanner HartArtist
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Joe Lewis?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.