Edward Goodwyn Lewis was a British artist, most noted for his portraits. He was active in Britain from the 1850’s, and built up a good reputation for his portraiture. He went to Australia for a few years in the 1880’s. His immediate family, three siblings, step-mother & his father, had migrated to Australia in the 1850’s, so he was ‘visiting family’ – but he also received a good number of commissions as a ‘celebrity visiting artist’.

Among them was the Melbourne Mayor, Cornelius Job Ham (mayor 1881-2) a magnificent large 3/4 length portrait now in the ‘City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection’. Their documentation states “E. Goodwyn Lewis (1827-1891) may have been a travelling artist, perhaps touring the colonies. All that is known about him is that he exhibited in the Victorian Academy of Arts Annual Exhibition in 1884 and 1885. Many of the works exhibited were studies made on location in Egypt and the Middle East.”