UNDERWOOD TYPEWRITER PATENTED AUGUST 3, 1898

 (1964)

OIL ON CANVAS

25” X 31”

The first machine portrait by Lewandowski-Lois was of a typewriter she “fell in love with” because the paper under the celluloid on each of the keys was a different color, depending on how often the human fingers had touched the keys. The idea that the use of the machine by a human had actually visually changed the machine “blew her mind,” and began her fascination with the relationship between man and machine. Her lament? “We were a more progressive nation when we manufactured things–when hard-working men and women were respected, and their unions had real power.”

Amen.

“Underwood Typewriter, Lewandowski-Lois’ first painting of a machine, was inspired by the discoloring of each of its celluloid keys, equivalent to how much each key had been used. It was the poetry of the human condition, symbolized by the machine, that led to her 50 year obsession with rod housings, cylinders, steering linkages and circuit tracers.”

SYRACUSE HERALD-AMERICAN MAGAZINE

PRATT & WHITNEY 9 CYLINDER RADIAL ENGINE WITH PROPELLER HUB

(1965)

OIL ON CANVAS

72” X 72”

In a painstaking technique allowing her to complete no more than a few canvases a year, Lewandowski-Lois approaches each subject as a portraitist, rendering a detailed physical description and then enhancing its functional properties through her expressive choice of color. Her selection, such as this hypnotic image of a Pratt & Whitney 9 cylinder radial engine, is charged by her excitement of the repetitive shapes, and in this case, powerfully romantic imagery.

“My next door neighbor, Uki Heineman, spotted my 6 ft. canvas being hoisted through our windows to be sent to my art studio, but she pleaded with me: ‘I can’t live another day without owning your painting of the 9 cylinder radial engine. Please sell it to me now!’

Unfortunately, she died 6 months after she bought it, but her children loved the painting – especially her son, who inherited it and allowed it to be exhibited at my first solo show and then at the Brooklyn Museum.”

LEWANDOWSKI-LOIS

APPLE PEELER

(1988)

OIL ON CANVAS

16” x 12”

This portrait of an apple peeler is a stunning ode of thanks and respect to a kitchen tool Lewandowski-Lois continues to use to prepare and bake her pluperfect apple pies. When having a discussion with legendary chef James Beard about baking, Rosemary told him that she only uses Northern Spy apples in her pies. He was immediately impressed and challenged her to a bake-off. After, he conceded that her pie was better than his.

K&P FANCY STICHING MACHINE

(1967)

OIL ON CANVAS

60" X 40"

Lewandowski-Lois’ astonishment at the intricacies and beauty of mechanical form and operation, takes flight in this scintillating portrayal of a K&P Fancy Stitching Machine, poised to go into action. (Lewandowski-Lois’ first solo show at the D’Arcy Galleries on Madison Avenue in 1967 included this early work. Touchingly, the garment worker who for years had operated the machine she had based her painting on, returned each day of the month-long exhibition to pay homage to her image of his beloved machine.)

FLYING TIGERS

(1968)

OIL ON CANVAS

24” X 19”

The Flying Tigers were American combat pilots recruited under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to defend the Republic of China against Japanese forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As a teenager, every Sunday Lewandowski-Lois went to the movies, saw newsreels about WWII, and was excited by the shark’s teeth “nose art” and hearing about the heroic combat victories of the Flying Tigers. This painting was one of her favorites to create–a true labor of love.

Walt Disney originally designed the nose art on the P-40s, a realistic full figure of a flying tiger. But when the Flying Tiger pilots saw a photo of an RAF P-40 with a shark’s face painted on its nose (which had been inspired by seeing one on a Messerschmitt fighter in Crete) they wanted it to be their own insignia, so they replaced Disney’s art with the famous shark faces created by Charles Bond and Erik Shilling.

VOLKSWAGENS

(1961-1965)

OIL ON CANVAS

40” X 28”

“In her thought-provoking painting, Volkswagens, Lewandowski-Lois portrays an army of advancing VW’s, an ominous parade of silvery-gray, army-green Nazi vehicles with windows painted black. Her fusion of exquisiteness and camp is startlingly effective–a fresh, early Pop note.”

 ARTnews

MECHANICAL MAN

(1986)

OIL ON CANVAS

48” X 72”

This evocative portrait of man is comprised of all the mechanical parts available from modern medicine at the time, re-assembled to form a Surrealistic reverie on the figure that feels wholly human. The machine has become the man–and the man has become the machine–a summation of Lewandowski-Lois’ humanistic view of machinery.

“I called a prosthetic company to ask if I could photograph or sketch an artificial hand that they had manufactured for a patient who lost his in an accident. I was told that would be impossible because each hand was made to order to fit each patient, and the patient was eagerly waiting for his hand to begin to use it.

I begged to see the hand before it was shown to the patient–even for 10 minutes–and they agreed if I would be there when it arrived. I rushed to the company with my camera and a sketch book and was led to a small, windowless room. A few minutes later, a lady entered, put a box on the table and said she would be back in 10 minutes to take it to the patient, who was waiting.

I opened the box and saw an exquisitely designed hand – for a little girl! I was overcome with emotion, but I had to immediately photograph it and sketch it as fast as possible before the woman came to take it to the patient.

I sat there, stunned and sickened for a while. Then I left to take a taxi home. ‘I can’t do it,’ I thought. I wanted to do a painting of all the artificial parts of a human body that were possible and place each one where it would be if it ‘lived’ where it was inserted.

But I couldn’t paint it if I was going to feel this nauseous each time I picked up a brush. A few days later I started thinking about that beautiful little machine and wondered if the patient was able to use the artificial hand. After a while, I became very happy with  the thought of her living ‘a normal life’ because of this intricate machine.

So I painted the Mechanical Man.”

LEWANDOWSKI-LOIS

APPLE PEELER

(1988)

OIL ON CANVAS

16” x 12”

  Lewandowski-Lois’ portrait of an apple peeler is a stunning ode of thanks and respect to a kitchen tool she continues to use to prepare and bake her pluperfect apple pies. (James Beard once admitted they were “probably better than his.”)

1966 FORD CHASSIS AND BODY

(1967)

OIL ON CANVAS

72” X 108”

In order to create this work of art, Lewandowski-Lois disappeared under the belly of a Ford automobile and with grease dripping on her face, lay many hours in a garage grease-pit, looking up, Michelangelo-style, drawing the underbelly of the chassis of a brand new Ford. Her nearly life-size painting was purchased by David Judelson, the President and COO of Gulf + Western, and he hung the painting on the ceiling of his conference room, providing a surreal possibility of an impending crash on the gargantuan conference table and the board members below.

NATIONAL CASH REGISTER

(1978)

OIL ON CANVAS

72” X 36”

When she was very young, Rosemary Lewandowski sometimes made posters for sales at her father’s grocery store where she enjoyed watching the numbers pop-up on an old National Cash Register. Each sale brought her closer to having the tuition to go to art school in New York – “Ca-ching!”Her father, Joseph, helped her fulfill her dream of earning a living as an art director. Decades later, a lot of love went into this painting.

WALTHAM AUTOMOBILE CLOCK MECHANISM

(1961)

OIL ON CANVAS

60" DIAMETER

Lewandowski-Lois is not interested in a mere description; rather, she conveys the total idea of the machine–the reason it exists to influence the human condition. This handsome enlargement of the mechanism of a Waltham automobile clock still resides in her Greenwich Village apartment in Manhattan, symbolizing her oeuvre, as well as marking the passing of time.

FRONT OF IBM CIRCUIT TRACER WITH MEMORY TRANSISTORS

(1965)

OIL ON CANVAS

54” X 40”

In a radio repair shop, Lewandowski-Lois spotted a 5” x 4” plastic card and was fascinated by the colorful tube-shaped transistors that plugged into the pattern of a silver circuit, with another slightly raised silver circuit on the back. The front was a cacophony of circular memory transistors, some stamped with IBM, and others with a map of Texas and the “ti” (Texas Instruments) logo. Delighted by the complex pattern of technology, Lewandowski-Lois painted, in her highly individualistic style, a 54” x 40” canvas of each side, hung back-to-back so that the magnificent circuit tracer seemingly floated mid-air.

“The labyrinth of a circuit tracer, interrupted by the numbered transistors, owes as much to Paul Klee as to IBM, as the colors throughout evoke an emotional overtone abstracted from their everyday setting.”

  ARTS MAGAZINE

S.O.S FOR A CIRCUIT TRACER

INEXPLICABLY, THE CANVAS OF THE FRONT OF THE IBM CIRCUIT TRACER CANNOT BE LOCATED. ANY INFORMATION AS TO THE CURRENT OWNER WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. TO REUNITE THE TWO SIDES IS LEWANDOWSKI-LOIS’ FONDEST WISH.

CIRCUIT TRACER (BACK)

(1966)

OIL ON CANVAS

54” X 40”

 “The labyrinth of a circuit tracer, interrupted by the numbered transistors, owes as much to Paul Klee as to IBM, as the colors throughout evoke an emotional overtone abstracted from their everyday setting.”

ARTS MAGAZINE

BOEING 727 COCKPIT

(1963)

OIL ON CANVAS

48” X 48”

While doing her research for this painting, Lewandowski-Lois was allowed 7 (grueling) hours to cram into the cockpit of a Boeing 727 to draw every square inch of the compact cockpit. Her portrait becomes an inspiring symbol of man (and woman) facing and controlling the complexity of late 20th century technology.

 “Perhaps Lewandowski-Lois did not seek to evoke such profound emotional undertones, but almost inevitably they arise once the machine has been extracted from its everyday setting–the intricate control panel of a Boeing 727 Cockpit (painted life-size) connotes mystery as well as power.”

ARTS MAGAZINE

S.O.S. FOR A 727

 IT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED IF ANYONE WITH ANY INFORMATION ON THE WHEREABOUTS OF THIS “LOST PAINTING” WOULD CONTACT THE ARTIST. IT LAST HUNG IN THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF NATIONAL AIRLINES, UNTIL THE PURCHASE OF NATIONAL BY PAN AM.THE ARTIST GLADLY OFFERS A REWARD FOR INFORMATION OR TO PAY FOR ITS PURCHASE.

CBS-TV CONTROL CENTER

(1983-1984)

OIL ON CANVAS

72” X 72”

Lewandowski-Lois believes in the redemptive power of the machine, and in revealing to us the humanity of the machine; she sees real hope that technology can physically and spiritually transform our lives. This painting reveals the interconnection between man and machine to communicate images to the world, and the power of the human mind that selects the images and controls the content.

ZEPHYR OSCILLATING FAN

(1980)

OIL ON CANVAS

60” X 36”

This machine portrait by Lewandowski-Lois depicts the mundane Zephyr Oscillating Fan, showing its inherent beauty with kinetic, stop-action imagery in “cold” shades of blue and green, with the prongs of the plug having the only “hot” color in the painting. She depicts this powerful machine as an almost religious symbol before the modern age of air-conditioning, bringing immediate relief to sweltering mankind. Pretty cool, eh?

THE AMERICAN DREAM MACHINE (FLOPPY DISK DRIVE)

(2000-2004)

OIL ON CANVAS

60” X 77”

In her book, The Age of the Smart Machine, Shoshana Zuboff observed that when computers first became a managing tool in industry, the workers were terrified of losing their jobs. Some tried to learn to operate the new technology, but men who had had a visceral relationship with their old machines didn’t trust the computer to pinpoint any dysfunction. When a machine showed signs of trouble, the men preferred going to it and fixing it there, “face-to-face,” sometimes with just a kick or a shove, or a bang with a hammer, because they knew the machines.

It wasn’t until the next generation, when children grew up using computers every day, that computers were universally “trusted” to do the job. In her painting of a floppy disk drive, Lewandowski-Lois presents the colorful beauty of this “smart machine” as a symbol of the promise of the future. She calls it “The Great American Dream Machine” because the chip was invented in America and changed the world.

MARINE GASKET

(1988)

OIL ON CANVAS

33” X 33”

This metal marine gasket was used to help waterproof an engine of a motorboat. (Lewandowski-Lois had the framer arrange the wires on the back of the painting so that it could be hung on the wall in any direction.)

ATALA 9-SPEED: LUKE’S BIKE

(1981)

OIL ON CANVAS

84” X 60”

This sublime piece of machinery, painted in 1981, is an autobiographical portrait of her then 19-year-old son Luke’s 9-speed bicycle, symbolizing the drive and spirit of his exuberant youth.

MOVIOLA

(1979)

OIL ON CANVAS

60” X 60”

This portrait of a moviola, a film-editing machine used by me for many decades, stars Cheryl Tiegs, portrayed over thirty times, flashing her plastic smile on plastic film in a never-ending loop. (Once again, Lewandowski-Lois sees humanity in a machine.)

TAYLOR-WHARTON NITROUS OXIDE CYLINDERS

(1985)

OIL ON CANVAS

36” X 48”

 The machine paintings of Lewandowski-Lois often express her private vision metaphorically. Her surreal portrait of a group of nitrous oxide cylinders astonishingly stare back at the viewer with seemingly human faces and eyes (and seem to be talking to each other).

LIFT OFF

(1990)

OIL ON CANVAS

9” X 12”

Before the computer changed the world, rubber cement and rubber cement thinner were indispensable to every graphic designer – always within reach on their drawing table or taboret. I always liked to use an old oil can that was regularly filled with rubber cement thinner which is used to release the adhesiveness of the rubber cement when I meticulously rearranged visual and type elements on mechanicals being prepared for the printer. This affectionate portrait of my lowly oil can is Lewandowski-Lois’ homage to one of the tools of our craft when we were young art directors in our early twenties.

DETAIL OF ANALOG COMPUTER SIMULATING AN OIL REFINERY

(1967)

OIL ON CANVAS

30” X 40”

This blowup of the detail of an analog computer (simulating the flow of oil in a refinery), is a symbolic metaphor for the pumping arteries of the human body–yet another summation of Lewandowski-Lois’ humanistic view of scientific engineering.

1966 FORD CHASIS AND BODY

(1967)

OIL ON CANVAS

108” X 72”

Lewandowski-Lois disappeared under the belly of a Ford automobile and with grease dripping on her face, stood many hours in a garage grease-pit, looking up, Michelangelo-style, drawing the chassis of a brand new Ford. Her nearly life-size painting was hung on the ceiling of the Gulf + Western conference room, providing a surreal possibility of an impending crash on the gargantuan conference table and board members below.

KITCHEN PORTHOLE

(1988)

OIL ON CANVAS

16” DIAMETER

This pristine portrait of a porthole does its duty in Lewandowski-Lois’ windowless kitchen, magically providing a fresh ocean breeze and clear, luminous light, as the artist painstakingly prepares her Greek delicacies.

PACE SLOT MACHINE, 1941

(1987)

OIL ON CANVAS

40” X 60”

Trying to sketch a slot machine at Harrah’s in Atlantic City, a security guard confiscated Lewandowski-Lois’ pencils and drawing pad in case she sketched a portrait of an errant gambler. So she bought a vintage 1941 Pace Slot Machine at the casino gift shop for 1,000 bucks and hauled it to her studio! Her painting enhances the machine’s emotive power with concentric circles radiating from the clanging slot machine as it pays out real quarters (all from 1941) expressing the surprise and excitement of hitting a jackpot, as day-glow colors reflect the disco-like atmosphere of the casino. (When on exhibit at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York, a guard had to be posted to prevent children from prying the quarters off.)

SOCKET

(1968)

OIL ON CANVAS

9” X 12”

As all connoisseurs of art know, “trompe l’oeil” is the conceptual deception of the eye in a 2-dimensional painting, using intense reality in an arranged still-life. Voilà! Lewandowski-Lois’ Socket is a witty, yet electrifying trick of the eye. In our Greenwich Village apartment, it hangs 6 inches off the ground, seemingly the plug and socket for a luminous Art Deco standing lamp. The painting attracts no attention (until one spots a frame around it!).

MALE & FEMALE

(1969)

OIL ON CANVAS

12” X 9”

Lewandowski-Lois animates still life.

This simple, small, yet somewhat erotic painting is one of my favorites by Lewandowski-Lois. The coiled extension cord, looking like a snake, is evocative of the temptation of Adam and Eve, eager to connect with the outlet. An electrifying painting, and like the other “socket” paintings, designed to be hung 6 inches off the floor.

MÉNAGE À TROIS

(1969)

OIL ON CANVAS

9” X 12”

Pardon my French.

INDOOR TENNIS COURTS IN AUGUST

(1973)

OIL ON CANVAS

72” X 60”

“Lewandowski-Lois paints an extremely foreshortened bird’s-eye view of a series of empty

tennis courts, done in muted shades of gray-green, with the curtains rendered as delicate, lacy foil. The subject is as unlikely as Lois’ machine portraits, yet a stunning autobiographical study (on her side of the net all of balls were hers–and on the other side, her instructor’s).”

ART news

DENTAL X-RAY MACHINE

 (1988)

OIL ON CANVAS

72” X 60”

Lewandowski-Lois’ paintings are sincere in their praise of factory-produced objects, but there is no irony in her work; rather, deep admiration and awe. In 1989, she fell in love with an outmoded X-Ray machine at her dentist’s office, and asked to purchase it from him (she later donated it). Her interpretation of a praying mantis-like creature dramatizes the machine’s mysterious, almost frightening power.

“Over several months of dental care, I noticed that the room next to the one I was in was always empty, except for a large dental x-ray machine. As I left, I would always go in there to look at the machine. It was an enormous black and blue monster that looked Art Deco, and it could be positioned in all directions. I asked my dentist if he would mind if I sketched it. He said I could have it free if I would just cart it out of the office. So I hired a mover to take it to my studio in the Cable Building in Soho, New York, and mounted it to the floor.

I painted ‘Dental X-Ray Machine’ in about a year, but I kept the actual machine for four more years, pushing it in all directions, like a giant toy bug.

When my lease was coming to an end, I called several local dental schools to see if they would be interested in taking it as a contribution, if they would just pick it up. But no one wanted it, and the landlord said if I left it, he’d charge me a small fortune. So I called the oldest dental school in America, the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Dr. Ben Z. Swanson was delighted to accept the machine for installation in their new Art Museum of Dentistry.

I agreed to loan the painting to be viewed at the installation party at the museum, which I happily attended. The painting was displayed next to the actual machine for about a year.”

LEWANDOWSKI-LOIS