Jack Levine

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Jack Levine (born January 3, 1915 in Boston , † November 8, 2010 in Manhattan ) was an American painter .

Career

Jack Levine grew up in the South End of Boston as the son of a shoemaker. His parents were of Lithuanian Jewish origin and he had seven older siblings. When Jack Levine was eight years old, he and his family moved to Roxbury , where he received painting lessons from an early age. In 1930, at the age of fourteen, he was admitted to study painting at Harvard University with Denman Ross.

He drew his inspiration from the old masters Titian , Velázquez , Goya , the Dutch-Flemish masters Van Eyck and Van der Weyden as well as from German expressionists such as George Grosz and Oskar Kokoschka .

In 1936, two of his paintings were exhibited in a group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art . In 1939 his first solo exhibition took place at the Downtown Gallery in New York. His work has been shown at numerous exhibitions in the USA.

His father, a non-practicing Jew, died in 1939. Levine deals with corrupt politicians, social injustices and human weaknesses. In later years he chose Biblical themes for some works, referring to his Jewish origins. Together with Hyman Bloom and Karl Zerbe , Levine is assigned to figurative expressionism . During the Second World War , he served in the army for three and a half years from 1942.

In 1946 Levine moved to New York and married Ruth Gikow, a painter of Ukrainian origin who died in 1982. With her he had a daughter, the painter Susanna Levine Fisher.

David Sutherland published a cinematic portrait in 1985. The documentary is entitled ː "Jack Levine: Feast of Pure Reason".

In 1976, Levine commented on the motivation behind his art as followsː

"I am primarily concerned with the condition of man. The satirical direction I have chosen is an indication of my disappointment in man, which is the opposite way of saying that I have high expectations for the human race. "

- Quote Jack Levine

In 1949 Levine was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1956 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters . In 1982 he was elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design in New York .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DC Moore Gallerieː Jack Levine accessed on July 6, 2014 (English)
  2. ↑ DC Moore Gallery Jack Levine (1915-2010) ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Jack Levine: Artist whose work ruthlessly satirized 20th-century America , accessed on July 6, 2014 (English).
  4. ^ The Jewish Daily Forward, by Robin Cembalestː A 'Child of Daumier' Confronts the 1990s, accessed on July 6, 2014 (English)
  5. ↑ PBS online ː Jack Levine: Feast Of Pure Reason accessed on July 6, 2014 (English)
  6. ↑ The New York Times by William Grimesː Jack Levine, a Painter Who Twinned Realism and Satire, Dies at 95, accessed on July 6, 2014
  7. ^ Members: Jack Levine. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 9, 2019 .
  8. ↑ nationalacademy.org: National Academicians "L" / Levine, Jack, NA 1982 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 1, 2015)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
personal data
SURNAME Levine, Jack
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 2010
Place of death Manhattan