Friday April 17, 2009
11am - 2pm
Mandarin Oriental New York
ArtTable Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts Honoree
Toby Devan Lewis
 Toby
Devan Lewis is a philanthropist, art collector, author and curator. For
more than twenty years Lewis amassed a collection of art works by emerging
artists for the Progressive Corporation, the nation’s
third largest auto insurer. This collection now numbers more than 6300
works and has been rated as one of the country’s top collections
by Art and Auction magazine. Under Lewis’ direction the company
commissioned an artist or groups of artists each year to create works
for its annual report, relating it to a theme important to the company.
The Progressive Annual Report has received more than 500 awards since
it began these commissions in 1979, virtually from every organization,
society, publication, group and association in the fields of business,
finance and visual communication, affirming Progressive’s Annual
Reports as the most respected, honored and visible in the world and history
of corporate communications. Among artists commissioned are: Greg Crewdson,
Teun Hocks, Carlos Vega, Carter Kustera, Greg Colson, and John Coplans.
Some of the most revered awards include the American Institute of Graphic
Arts, Annual Report 100 (Most awards in 22 year history),Women in Communications
Award, Mead Annual Report Show (Most awards in 41 year history), International
Association Business communicators, and the New York Art Directors Award.
Lewis’ philanthropy includes providing the initial funding
for Prospect.1 New Orleans, as well as support for Creative Capital
and Performa and major gifts to the New Museum of New York, where she
is an active member of its Board of Trustees. She also serves on the
boards of the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, ArtPace, San Antonio,
Texas, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Cleveland Film Society.
She has also contributed major gifts to ideastream, where she served
on its board, for its new Idea Center, a collaborative space for WVIZ,
WCPN, and Playhouse Square Foundation.
Lewis was born in 1934, educated at Skidmore College, University of
Pennsylvania and Case Western Reserve University. She is mother of a
daughter and two sons and grandmother of two girls and one boy. Early
in her career she headed public relations, sales and marketing for the
Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, now the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary
Art. Most recently, as part of the Annual Cleveland Arts Prize, she received
the 2007 Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts. In
2004 she was the recipient of the Award of Excellence from the International
Association of Professional Art Advisors, and in 1998 she was honored
by the New Museum for her “significant contribution in bringing
the visual arts and creative experience to the work environment.” Again,
in 1996 she was honored by IAPAA for “helping to foster a spirit
of creativity and interest in new ideas and new ways of thinking.” Her
interest constantly challenges how we look and perceive our world and
underlines both her professional career and her commitment to the arts
and ideas.
In 2007 she published a book on the Progressive art collection entitled,
ART WORKS. In 2006 she began The Toby Fund, a private foundation, to
foster creativity in the arts, education, health, environment and the
development of progressive institutions.
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