Nieves Diaz Lewis was born in Remates de Guane, in the province of Pinar del Río, Cuba. She lived with her three sisters in Los Encinitos, her parents’ farm. Her father, Moisés Diaz, grew tobacco and raised cattle, but, being university-educated, he read a great deal to his daughters. Nieves remembered a poem by José de Espronceda that her father read many times at her request. That memory inspired the painting Wandering Pirate: “My ship is my treasure, freedom is my god, my law is strength and the wind, my only homeland the sea…” (José de Espronceda, Song of the Pirate).

She emigrated with her two sisters to the United States in 1959 and settled in Atlanta, Georgia, where she met her husband, a lawyer. At the age of 50 she was able to fulfil a lifelong dream: learning to paint and developing her talent. In 1980 she began studying with Ouida Cannady, who inspired her to trust her visions and ideas. Nieves loved travelling, to China, India, Europe and South America, and the influence of those journeys is very clear in her paintings.

She paints her emotions. When a painting begins, it has no fixed idea but a sense of what it wants to communicate. Freedom and nature are recurring themes in her work. She has won numerous awards: in 2000 she received prizes for three paintings at a global exhibition, the China Art Exposition 2000 at the Beijing Art Museum, where the paintings were then exhibited for a year.