The show argues that Lewis used abstraction throughout his career, after initially working
along social realist lines, commingling it with the figure to comment on political issues involving race and civil rights, and introducing history and narrative into a style that eschewed such content in favor of medium specificity.
Along with Pietro Consagra, Achille Perilli, and Giulio Turcato, in 1947 he helped formulating a manifesto and establish a group of abstract artists called Forma I. Although imbued with socialist leanings, the group did not follow the
realist social commentary furthered by Guttuso but proposed to reclaim abstraction from the Futurism movement.