by Jon Lackman | 12 March 2010 | Uncategorized
From Timesonline.co.uk:
Lesley Lewis made distinguished contributions to the history of art and architecture as an author and by serving on numerous influential heritage bodies … Lesley Lewis was born in 1909 … she was educated at home by governesses, the last of whom introduced her to the study of the history of art. At the age of 17 she was sent to finishing school in Paris … She followed her [Courtauld Institute] undergraduate degree with a postgraduate thesis on the rise of Neo-Classical architecture in England … She exchanged the frugality of English postwar life for the rigours of trekking with [husband] David [Lewis] all over the Sudan [for 11 years], so that he could investigate insects that transmit tropical diseases. Finding that she had time on her hands, she started to read law by correspondence and was called to the Bar in 1956 … she put together a well-received book, Connoisseurs and Secret Agents in Eighteenth Century Rome (1961) … Lewis was elected in 1964 to the Society of Antiquaries, which became her spiritual home … She was awarded the society’s medal for outstanding services in 2002.
