Wharves

Jeannette Maxfield Lewis

Fresno, California resident Jeannette Maxfield Lewis and her husband summered in Carmel where she studied printmaking with Carmel printmaker Armin Hansen. Like Hansen, she drew much of her inspiration from the wharves and fishermen in the Monterey/Carmel area on the Pacific coast.

This intaglio, "Wharves", is done using drypoint. In the foreground is the undulating, shadowed water of Monterey Bay. In the background are the fishing boats, wharves, and shacks near Cannery Row where people can be seen doing their jobs to bring in the catch.

Lewis creates a complicated composition, through which she leads the viewer using light and dark and directional lines that break the surface into separate areas of interest.

Jeannette Maxfield Lewis, painter and printmaker, was born in Oakland, California on April 19, 1894. Her artistic disposition was nourished by a well-rounded education at the Castilleja School for girls in Palo Alto. Her studies continued at the California School of Fine Arts where she a student of Gottardo Piazzoni. Maxfield spent a brief period in New York studying with Hans Hofmann. Upon returning to California she was employed for a time at Foster and Kleiser, an outdoor advertising company with a painting factory in San Francisco. After her marriage to H. C Lewis in 1920, the couple moved to Fresno, California while maintaining a summer home in Pebble Beach. During summers she studied with Armin Hansen and she began exploring printmaking techniques in 1931.