Schroeder and Lewis: Elemental Artists

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.