Jeannette Maxfield Lewis Born in Oakland in 1894, Jeannette Maxfield was educated at the Castilleja School for Girls in Palo Alto. Experiencing an artistic awakening from the impact of the 1915 Pan-Pacific International Exposition, she went against the vigorous objections of her conventional family, determined to follow a career in art at a time when this was not common for girls from “nice families.” Jeannette enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 1918. There, her charismatic teacher, Armin Hansen, as well as fellow Modernist Gottardo Piazzoni influenced her both technically and philosophically, though she was always able to carve her own path. Returning to Oakland, she first worked in commercial advertising, designing and painting billboards for the Foster & Kleiser Company of San Francisco. In 1920 Jeannette married Central Valley farmer H.C. Lewis and moved to Fresno. The couple maintained a summer home in Pebble Beach, where she continued her studies in painting and print-making with Hansen, who lived with his family just across the street. These two couples and their children remained close friends for the rest of their lives. In 1948 Lewis was juried into the Carmel Art Association. She also studied under two other CAA Artist Members, Pedro de Lemos and Lee Randolph. The adventurous Lewis’s traveled widely to first- and third-world regions, including many adventurous road trips south of the border. Often painting plein air, it was in Mexico that Jeannette’s strong, spontaneous brushwork, skewed perspectives, and expressive color fully blossomed in the bright sunlight of Mexican villages. The pioneering spirit of this distinguished series embodied a bridge between the conservative art establishment and the bohemian moderns. Lewis was always a careful observer of the details of architecture and landscape as well as technically masterful. Her paintings and her drypoint etchings—which were slowly taking center stage—were referred to as masculine works, unlike the “picturesque or cute” descriptions so common in the reviews of other women artists of her day. Her aesthetic earned her solo exhibitions at the De Young Museum in 1950 and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in 1955. That same year the Lewis’ moved permanently from the Fresno farm to their Pebble Beach home. After her husband’s death in 1964, she abandoned art, after four decades of prolific exposure, sales success, and awards earned throughout the United States and Europe. She passed away in Monterey in 1982.