His father was the Reverend A. J. S. Lewis, who was Mayor of Cape Town, and on 4 October 1929, officially opened the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway.
When his marriage broke up in 1922 his two sons Tom and David went to Cape Town where they were raised by their grandparents and his daughter Catherine stayed with his ex-wife.
[1] He also painted several persons actively involved in the war effort ranging from a member of the South African Native Military Corps to a nurse.
Later the couple acquired a small holding opposite the Stellenbosch Golf Club where his wife and children could pursue their love of horse riding.
The painting Portrait of Albert van der Sandt Centlivres by Lewis was burned by demonstrators during the Rhodes Must Fall upheaval at the University of Cape Town in February 2016.