The William Way LGBT Community Center is the only organization in Philadelphia dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ persons connect to their cultural community. The Gilbert Lewis: Awkward Tenderness exhibition is one of five major art exhibitions of LGBTQ+ artists being presented this year by the Community Center.

Gilbert Braddy Lewis (b. September 25, 1945) BFA, MCAT is a Queer-American who has been actively involved in the arts community in Philadelphia for many decades as an artist, a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (where he was a student, 1963-68), as an Art Therapist, and as a manager of two Center City art supply stores. He has been exhibiting his artworks since 1967 to the present, including BECOMING MEN: Portrait Paintings by Gilbert Lewis exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, NYC in 2004 and his solo exhibition Gilbert Lewis Portraits at the William Way LGBT Community Center, Philadelphia in 2006.

In this exhibition, one of four art exhibitions in Philadelphia dedicated to Gilbert Lewis’s artistic legacy, the artist demonstrates his persistent attention to visually capture the portrait of the young man as tenderly naive about the world. His portraits are suffused with his care to convey the wide eyed awkwardness of young men who sought guidance and trust in their artistic relationship with him, as his model. Gilbert Lewis’s portraits are haunting, beautiful and honest.

Several years ago Gilbert was diagnosed with the debilitating Alzheimer’s Disease. Sales of his artworks in this exhibition will help to sustain his treatment.

Aaron Feltman, BFA
Janus Ourma MS, MA