Provenance
Private collection, Devon
Note: Lever was born and grew up in Adelaide, Australia. He showed an early talent for art and devoted his attention to learning the craft during his school days, encouraged by his grandfather who ultimately left him a modest inheritance. This enabled Lever to travel to Europe in 1893, spending time in both Paris and London. He exhibited at the Paris Salon (1897-8), and by 1902 had arrived in St Ives.
Julius Olssonand Louis Grier became good friends in the town, and he was an organiser of cricket games along with John William Ashton (Will). American artists occasionally visited St Ives, and Lever befriended Ernest Lawson who admired his work. In 1911 Lawson persuaded Lever to emigrate to America, saying that he would have greater success there. Arriving in New York in 1912 with his family, Lever was fascinated and excited by the subjects totally new to his experience and titillated his imagination; he began to sketch everything in sight - the tall buildings, the great ocean liners on the Hudson River, Times Square at night, and Central Park - and snow, which he had rarely encountered in Europe.