Stephen F. Eisenman reviews Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis at the Chicago Cultural Center, on view through January 8, 2017.

Eisenman writes: “[Lewis’] paintings are often blue, and they reference the exhilaration and despair of being black in America. Friend and contemporary of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and the rest, he never attained comparable financial success or critical renown, but his paintings are just as ‘tragic and timeless,’ to cite Mark Rothko’s plangent phrase.”