Brief info
Robert L. Lewis, Jr. was born in Cocoa, Florida in 1941, raised in Cocoa, and is still employed there. Lewis, one of the few Florida Highwaymen painters who is recognized as a member of the group despite not having actually collaborated with the group of painters that Alfred Hair and Harold Newton established in Fort Pierce, Florida, in the early 1960s, is the third child in a family of six.
Lewis liked art since he was young. But he really started to get good at it when he took an art class. Lewis told the Ocala Star Banner in 2010 that he had to take an art class because he got injured playing football and couldn't do physical education. "My teacher encouraged me to keep doing art. "
His art teacher, Alberta Leisure, showed Lewis the work of Harold Newton for the first time. This inspired him to start painting landscapes and think about selling his art for a living.
