Lewis Watts

Lewis Watts is an internationally exhibited documentary photographer, archivist, curator, and professor who focuses much of his art and research on the cultural landscape of the  African Diaspora. While traveling, Watts finds himself drawn to talk to and take portraits of people who radiate confident individuality, not letting outside forces determine their value; they are people comfortable in their own skin.  

Watts is a Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of California Santa Cruz and taught  in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. He has  lectured at institutions such as Harvard University, The Oakland Museum, Renne University in France, Louisiana State University, and Stanford University. His photography  is exhibited in the collections of major museums, and he is affiliated with the Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. Currently, he is documenting the Gullah culture in the  “Low Country” between Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, North Carolina—in  conjunction with the International African American Museum, opening in Charleston in  2023. 

Lewis Watts and his family lived in Bolinas in the 1970s at the beginning of his art career,  and made lasting friendships here. Watts says that his time in West Marin helped shape  him as an artist and sharpened his awareness of the environment around him. He  continues to use that sensibility in his photography to this day.