Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is an associate professor of History of Art and Architecture, and African and African-American studies at Harvard University. Her research explores the intersection of African American and Black Atlantic visual representation, racial justice, and representational democracy in the United States from the 19th century to the present.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University, an MPhil from Oxford University after being awarded the Marshall Scholarship, an M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and her Ph.D. from Yale University.
Before joining Harvard's faculty, Lewis held curatorial positions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London. She also served as a critic at Yale University School of Art.
As a frequent speaker, Lewis has lectured at numerous universities and conferences, including TEDGlobal, SXSW, PopTech, ASCD, and organizations such as the Aspen Institute, the Getty, and the Federal Reserve Bank.
She has served on President Obama's Arts Policy Committee and on the boards of the CUNY Graduate Center, the Brearley School, and the Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts. Lewis is a board member of Creative Time, Thames & Hudson, Inc., and Harvard Design Press, and serves on the Yale University Honorary Degrees Committee.
Author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller, The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, Lewis' book is a layered, story-driven investigation of how innovation, discovery, and the creative process are spurred on by advantages gleaned from improbable foundations.
Her essays on race, contemporary art, and culture have been published in numerous journals, including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Artforum, Art in America, and publications for the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art, and Rizzoli.
Lewis received the Freedom Scholar Award in 2019 from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, honoring her body of work and its "direct positive impact on the life of African-Americans." She is the co-editor of an anthology on the work of Carrie Mae Weems, which received the 2021 Photography Network Book Prize.
Upcoming books include Caucasian War: How Race Changed Sight in America, Vision & Justice, and Groundwork: Race and Aesthetics in the Era of Stand Your Ground Law. The article on which Groundwork is based, published in Art Journal, won the 2022 Arthur Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association for "the best paper in the field of aesthetics, broadly understood."
In 2022, Lewis was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.
