Lewis Watts

Lewis Watts is an American photographer, archivist curator, art historian, author, lecturer, and educator. He is a Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Career

Lewis Watts was born in 1946 in Little Rock, Arkansas. He has a BA degree in political science, as well as a MA degree in photography and design from University of California, Berkeley. He had taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of California, Berkeley, as well as other institutions for over 40 years.
His work is inspired by his historical and contemporary interests and representation of people in the African diaspora.
Watts work has been exhibited at and has collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Cité de la Musique, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Oakland Museum of California, the Neuberger Museum of Art, the Amistad Center for Art and Culture, Light Work.

2017 – Mining the Archive, Rena Bransten Gallery, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, California
2017 – Work from the Collection, Lewis Watts, Amistad Center of Art and Culture, Hartford, Connecticut
2015–2017 – New Orleans, Photographs by Lewis Watts, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California
2016 – FRANCAIS, Photographs by Lewis Watts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
1999 – Lifework Exhibit, Falkirk Cultural Center, San Rafael, California
1999 – Photography of Lewis Watts, Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts
1999 – Lewis Watts, South to West Oakland, Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
1998–1999 – Urban Foot Prints: The Photography of Lewis Watts, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
Publications
Filmography
2016 – Independent Lens
2015 – Dogtown Redemption
2014 – Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People
1999 – ''Neighborhoods: The Hidden Cities of San Francisco''