The artist who beat swords into plowshares
When local activist, artist and teacher Tom Lewis died in April of this year, it was less than a week after his opening at the former Park Hill Gallery on Park Avenue. In the days leading up to the show, friends noticed how hard he was working in preparation for the exhibit. People like John Muchau, a security guard at the Worcester Art Museum.
“He would come in here early in the morning and not leave until after 10 p.m. at night,” Muchau says with sadness. “I said, to him, ‘Thomas, what are you doing?’ He only smiled and said that he was working.” 
Lewis was 68 when he died in his Austin Street home. He left a legacy that can best be described as honest. He was probably better known for his life-long struggles in the anti-war movement. Lewis was a member of The Catonsville Nine, a group of young men and women who, on May 17, 1968, entered the Selective Service Offices in Catonsville, Maryland, removed hundreds of draft records and burned them in protest against the Vietnam War.
Among those arrested that day were the fraternal Catholic priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan. Hearing of Lewis’s passing, Daniel Berrigan wrote: “A poignant and powerful witness / To the survival / Of endangered conscience. Just barely / His art rides the edge / It hurts and heals. Best of all this art is one with conscience. In courtrooms and jails / Tom Lewis heals / The ancient killing split / Between ethics and imagination. I celebrate this art / A rare joy and gift / But the highest art of Tom Lewis / Is his own life.” 
The visual manifestation of Berrigan’s thoughts and feelings are now on display through August in the Higgins Education Wing at the Worcester Art Museum. The show is a continuation of the original exhibition that opened at the Park Hill Gallery. It was organized by its curator, Barbara Lewis (no relation to Tom Lewis), as a documentary of Lewis’s life as an artist as well as an activist. Barbara Lewis, who was a student of Lewis’s, says that show also coincided with the 75th anniversary of The Catholic Worker.
At the time of the first opening, Barbara Lewis said, “Tom was a member and active participant, particularly in the anti-war peace movement. We took photographs of Tom at a Peace Rally in front of the Federal Court House in Worcester with other peace ralliers from The Catholic Worker. Photos of Tom will be on exhibit also. Tom has lots of stories and art work and is a great advocate for the poor and downtrodden in the city.”
When Lewis died, Barbara Lewis and documentary photographer Paul Gingris felt it was time to organize as complete a retrospective of his work as possible. The result is the WAM exhibit. It is a loving tribute and powerful living testament to a man who — as we see from this vantage point— was a vital participant in the American anti-war movement for more than 40 years. His work starkly documents the embodiment of the struggle in all its honor and horror. 
Lewis had a ringside seat to countless protests in his life and because of his commitment to nonviolent civil disobedience, Lewis spent days and nights in jail. With pen in hand he captured that — not merely as a spectator, but again, as a participant. That genuine, authentic heart and emotion is projected in all the work on display in this show. And like Käthe Kollwitz or even Van Gogh, artists who not only embraced the poor, but lived among them, hearing their cries and pain, Lewis’s work, too, has an immediacy that reaches out.
The retrospective spans 52 yeas of art-making and ranges in media from painting and drawing to printmaking. Brace yourself; this is tough stuff, but the flesh and blood of humanity. o
