Mary is a sculptor who was hired by View-Master in the early 1970s. She worked with
both Joe Liptak and Florence Thomas. She learned the crafts they had perfected to craft
beautiful figures out of clay or sculpey. She has been credited by Wolfgang and Mary Ann Sell
in their book View-Master Memories with working on five packets. She is the sole artist credited
on three of them. Her career at View-Master was short as she quit View-Master because they
were pressuring the artists to increase output to the detriment of the quality. Fortunately all of
her 3D work is available on unfaded Kodachrome. She was born in 1927, started work as an
artist in 1944, and as of 2015 is still working as a sculptor in Oregon creating various works
including commissions for Catholic churches.
Her style of pictures is quite different from either Joe or Florence. Florence crafted very
classical figures which often gave one the impression of Meissen figurines. Florence obviously
liked cats and featured them in many of her reels. Both Joe and Florence could create
figures which looked just like classical illustrations. Joe frequently did cartoon and TV/movie
show reels, while Florence did only one Disney movie, and Mary did not work on any show
reels. Joe’s work, when he was not copying existing works, could be very realistic with a dash
of cartoon styling and surprising perspectives. Mary created realistic figures with down to earth
styling. This is very evident in her bible series reels.
The Revolutionary War packet was painstakingly researched and the results are
outstanding. Mary contributed the scene of Washington crossing the Delaware which
beautifully echoes the famous but unrealistic painting by the German artist Emanuel Gottlieb
Leutze. According to Wolfgang Sell, the diorama ended up in a GAF executive’s living room, much to Mary’s dismay.
The Little Yellow Dinosaur was a cute children’s story with dinosaur’s modeled
according to some of the science of the time. The fact that dinos were warm blooded, feathered,
and brightly colored had not yet been verified. At least they were colored in Mary’s dioramas.
This was Mary’s first project completely under her control. She and Bob Johnson wrote the
story.
In the beginning is a packet taken from the Biblical Genesis stories. It covers Genesis I,
Adam and Eve, and Cain and Able. Mary created some stunningly beautiful dioramas for this
packet. Some of the Genesis I scenes parallel research on the evolution of life on Earth. In some
scenes she used a has relief effect.
Florence Thomas worked with Mary on the “Moses and the Plagues of Egypt” packet.
According to Wolfgang, Mary did most of the work and created all of the animals. Florence
probably worked on the human figures.
* 3D photos by Cliff Bond, Hank Gaylord, Digitization- Wolfgang Sell, Restoration- J. Clement
Bibliography: View-Master Memories by Mary Ann & Wolfgang Sell
List of View-Master projects by Mary Lewis
1970 B853 Moses and the Plagues of Egypt (with Florence Thomas)
1971 B605 The Little Yellow Dinosaur
1972 B855 In the Beginning
1975 B810 The Revolutionary War (with Lelia Heath Pearson, Joe Liptak)
1976 B882 Jesus Christ, His Life