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In memory of Beth Irwin Lewis 1934-2023

Beth Irwin Lewis, 1934-2023

Noted scholar, cultural historian of German modern art, loving mother, equal partner, steadfast feminist, and committed organic gardener, Dr. Beth Irwin Lewis died March 3, 2023, in Oberlin, Ohio.  In appropriate fashion, a woman who lived a life of her mind, defined and led by the independence of her thoughts and convictions, concluded her 8-year struggle with dementia with grace days after her 89th birthday.

Born in Mashhad, Iran, before the outbreak of World War II, Beth Louise Irwin held a global perspective on the intersection of politics, religion, and culture throughout her life. The daughter of missionaries Rev. J. Mark Irwin and Ruth Hoffman Irwin, her childhood was defined by vivid memories of Russian, German, British, and American interests in the oilfields of Persia, and her harrowing evacuation with her older sister, Mary Lynette, and her mother by merchant and prison transport ships across the Pacific between 1942-43.

Although she returned to Iran after the war, Beth came stateside and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from The College of Wooster (’56) and completed her doctorate from The University of Wisconsin (’69) working with Prof. George L. Mosse.  Beth met and married fellow graduate student D. Arnold Lewis in 1958, and their research travels over the next year through post-war Europe and the Middle East initiated a 58-year fruitful and loving partnership. She gave birth to daughter Martha and twin sons, David and Paul, published a comprehensive analysis of George Grosz, served on the Board of Education for the Wooster City Schools, co-authored as a Member of Session the 1979 report calling for gender equality in the language used throughout the Presbyterian Church, and held positions as Associate Director of Admissions, and Secretary of The College of Wooster all before her 48th year.

While granted the title, Affiliated Scholar and Adjunct Professor of Art History at Wooster, Beth navigated her own academic career, achieving international recognition for her scholarship and writing from 1982 through 2009. She was invited by UCLA as a Visiting Associate Professor for multiple years between 1982-1987, held the positions of Visiting Scholar at the Getty Center, Scholar in Residence at the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton between 1989-1994.

Beth’s scholarship illuminated the intersections between power, politics, and art.  She was keenly interested in public perception of culture and wrote foundational scholarship on the depiction of women in modern art. Her essay, “Lustmord: Violence against Women in Early Twentieth-Century German Art,” solicited invitations by Stanford, Harvard, Wisconsin, UCLA, Pomona, and Iowa, among others, for keynote lectures.  She co-authored Persuasive Images: Poster of Art and Revolution with Peter Paret and Paul Paret (Princeton University Press, 1992), and her book George Grosz: Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic, first printed in 1971, was revised and reissued in 1991 (Princeton University Press) and has been translated into Italian and Japanese.

Following a decade of archival research, Beth completed her substantial work, Art for All? The Collision of Modern Art and the Public in Late-Nineteenth-Century Germany in 2003 (Princeton University Press).  Her 448-page opus challenged the dominant Francophile narrative of modern art, positioning the role of mass art exhibitions and popular culture as central to the rise of German national identity, modernity, and the subsequent reaction of the European Avant-Garde. Upon publication, the book was hailed as “..the most innovative book on German art written in the last decade or so, and will certainly be the one that sets the standards while also formulating the questions for future studies.” (R. Heller)

Throughout her life, Beth remained keenly grounded and attuned to the interdependence of the earth and human life. The self-sufficiency that defined her childhood in the mission field was brought to annual cycles of sumptuous garden cultivation, harvesting, and canning, and early adoption of diets for a small planet.  Among her children’s earliest memories are of forays into homemade yogurt, Tigers Milk with brewers’ yeast, and unending boxes of organic flour and heirloom grains from Walnut Acres. Her hands were never still, whether steeped in soil or enmeshed in a whir of knitting needles, the latter often while simultaneously reading or listening.

After 47 years of maintaining a 19th-century farmhouse in Wooster, Ohio, Beth with her husband, architectural historian Arn Lewis, moved to Kendal at Oberlin in 2011. She is survived by her sister, her three children, all architects, and four grandchildren: Astrid, Quinn, Sarabeth, and Maximo. At her dignified passing, she was encircled by her children and long-time friend Sara Patton. A memorial celebration of her life, spirit, and work is planned for this summer.

Posted in on March 6, 2023.