Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Neville Lewis came to England in 1912 at the age of 17. He studied first with Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn, then from 1914–1916 under Henry Tonks at the Slade. He then served with the British army in Italy and France. After the war Lewis worked in London where he quickly acquired a reputation as a portrait painter. His first one-man exhibition was at the Carfax Gallery in 1920, which included paintings made in South Africa before the war as well as some executed in the South of France after it. His autobiography ('Studio Encounters', published in 1962) mentions Sadler as one of the buyers, as well as Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, Sir Cyril Butler and Roger Fry. Lewis also exhibited at the Goupil Gallery. He became a member of the New English Art Club in 1920, and was made a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1936.