WORCESTER, MA.- Artist, anti-war activist, Catholic worker and longtime WAM faculty member Tom Lewis, will be honored with a retrospective exhibition of prints, drawings, and paintings, on view through August 8, 2008 in the Higgins Education Wing. Tom died unexpectedly in April. Opening reception will be held on July 10, 5:30-7pm.

The work on view spans Tom's fifty-two years of art making and range in media from painting and drawing, to print making. Tom used his art as an expression of his political and anti-war beliefs and activism. He was a founding member of Artists Against the War during the Vietnam War and served a three-year prison term during that period for destroying draft files in Catonsville, Maryland. His political themes were his life themes.

Tom taught at the Museum and other local institutions of learning for many years while continuing his passionate quest to make America a more just and peaceful place for all of us to live. He piloted non-toxic printmaking techniques in his classes at the Worcester Art Museum, knowing that they were better both for the environment and for his students.

As Daniel Berrigan, S.J., once wrote of Tom's work, ... [it is] a poignant and powerful witness to the survival of endangered conscience ... his art rides the edge, it hurts and heals ... best of all, this art is one with conscience. In the courtroom and jails Tom Lewis heals the ancient killing split between ethics and imagination. I celebrate this art, a rare joy and gift. But the highest art of Tom Lewis, is his own life."