Amphytrion

1951
Lewis, Kit
Kit Lewis was born in Lichfield in Staffordshire in 1911. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, she studied at Chelsea College of Art , where she was taught by Graham Sutherland. It was here that she also met her first husband Morland Lewis, who died in North Africa in 1944 while serving as a war artist. In 1943, Lewis became a member of the London Group, the collective of artists first formed in 1913, by an amalgamation of the Camden Town Group and the Vorticists. She had her first solo show at the Leicester Galleries in 1953. Amphytrion was the son of Alcaeus, who, after accidentally killing his uncle Electryon , fled to Thebes with Electryon’s daughter Alcmene. In order to marry Alcmene, Amphytrion agreed to avenge the deaths of her brothers, many of whom had died at the hands of the Taphians. He defeated the Taphians with the help of their king’s daughter, Comaetho, who cut off her father’s golden hair out of love for Amphytrion. He returned to Thebes and married Alcmene, who gave birth to twins – Iphicles, Amphytrion’s son, and Heracles, who had been fathered by Zeus. Greg Salter
  • Artwork Details: 61 x 71.1cm
  • Edition:
  • Material description: oil on canvas
  • Credit line: © the artist
  • Theme: Figurative
  • Medium: Painting
  • Accession number: AC 185

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