Schroeder
and Lewis: Elemental Artists
explores the lives, works and 50+ year
friendship of artists Howard Schroeder (b.1911 - d.1995) and Jack
Lewis (b.1914). Both were devoted to making a full-time living
in the arts, despite the odds and their rural locations. For more
than half a century these full-time artists recorded the changing
life of southern Delaware, ultimately earning the respect of national
audiences.
Using rare home movies and the voices of his children
to speak for him, viewers have the opportunity to meet Howard
Schroeder, the respected painter and inspiring teacher who "came
to the beach" as a military artist during WWII. Schroeder would
become a champion for the arts in southern Delaware as he captured
life along the coastline.
Similarly, Jack Lewis came to Delaware as a WPA
artist. For the next sixty years he chronicled the lives and landscapes
of "small town America" through his many canvasses of Bridgeville,
Delaware and environs. Now, Jack will reflect on surviving as
a full-time artist and will share recollections of his nearly
life-long friend, Howard Schroeder. In time, each of these artists
would travel around the world, returning always to live and paint
in Delaware's coastal county.
Both Howard Schroeder and Jack Lewis were instrumental
in the founding of the Rehoboth Art League, southern Delaware's
premiere art and cultural institution. The film will debut at
the Rehoboth Film Festival in November 2000. It will then be distributed
to regional public broadcasting and made available for non-broadcast
distribution to museums, schools, and bookstores in conjunction
with the Jack Lewis memoir, "A Brush with Fate", published by
John Schroeder and Kevin Moore. The team published "Howard Schroeder:
A Man and His Art" in 1994.