FORT LEE, NJ - Peter Lewis, director of Communications and Environmental Affairs with Sun Chemical Corp.'s Colors Group, died suddenly April 28 after suffering a heart attack. He was 55.

Dr. Lewis, who was born in Blackpool, UK, held a number of key technical and management positions with Sun Chemical's Colors Group during a more than 20-year career with the business. He joined Sun Chemical in 1980 as Product manager for Quinacridone Pigments and was named Technical Service manager in 1981, Dry Color Product manager in 1986, and Coatings Industry manager in 1989. He had previously held technical and manufacturing positions with ICI (now Avecia) in the UK and the United States. Sun Chemical's Colors Group is a major supplier of color pigments used in coatings.

Dr. Lewis contributed numerous articles to industry and technical journals, and was the author of a Federation of Societies for Coatings Technology monograph, Organic Pigments. He was editor of the second edition of the Pigment Handbook, published in 1988. He was a graduate of London's Royal Institute of Chemistry, and earned a Ph.D. degree in colloid chemistry from Bristol University in the UK.

Dr. Lewis's survivors include his wife, Phyllis.