Eli Levin, Oil Painting Still Life Tablescape with Coffee & Oranges 1972 Israel Eli Levin, 1972

Description

Eli Levin (born 1938)
Israeli Still Life, 1972
Oil on canvas mounted on masonite
Dated and signed lower right: 1972 … more Eli Levin (born 1938)
Israeli Still Life, 1972
Oil on canvas mounted on masonite
Dated and signed lower right: 1972 ISRAEL / ELI LEVIN
Frame: 18.38 x 26.25 Canvas 15 5/8 x 23 in.

Eli Levin was born in 1938 to Meyer Levin the well-known author, and Mabel Schamp, scientist and dedicated Communist. He was raised in New York in an intellectual milieu, went to Music and Arts High School, and was influenced by the artistic movements of Social Realism and Regionalism. He studied with several realist painters, including Raphael Soyer and George Grosz. In 1956 he attended Music and Art High School; in 1958 he attended Brandeis University. In 1960 he attended The New School for Social Research; daily painting from the model with instruction by Raphael Soyer; daily proximity to murals byJose Clemente Orozco and Fletcher Benton. Much of his subject matter is narrative social comment, with major work in still life, landscape and the nude as well. Additionally, he devoted an eight year period to interpretation of ancient Greek myth. While the greater part of Levin’s work is in the medium of egg tempera, he is prolific in oils, watercolors and intaglio printmaking. WPA art, Depression-era Social Realism, American Scene regionalism. Ashcan School and German realism of the Weimar period are among the modern influences that have helped to shape Levin’s work. By the time he attended the Boston Museum School in 1960, he found New York School abstraction to be an oppressive force on the east coast. He was denied graduation from the Museum School on account of his commitment to practice realist painting. Against this background he was motivated to explore the West at the age of twenty-six. In 1964, on a solo road trip, Levin discovered the New Mexico art community by way of Taos, nearly by accident. He met John Norton who was remodeling a gallery space on Ledoux Street. He met Emil Bisttram on his daily walks, and he met Ned Jacobs in his studio on the second floor of the Harwood. He swept out a garage on Ledoux Street, put up a sign naming it The Dead Cat Gallery and showed his paintings in it for a short while. Eventually, he explored further south to Santa Fe before going back to school at Wisconsin University in 1965.
Levin made his first etchings in the Boston Museum School and later spent a year as a teaching assistant in the etching studio of Wisconsin University’s graduate school. In 1981, he formed a group of printmakers called the Santa Fe Etching Club, around his press that was previously owned by Santa fe artist Will Schuester, printer for John Sloan. The group has exhibited numerous times, twice in Taos, and continues today in its own studio space.
Levin’s practice has been to elaborate his themes in both etching and egg-tempera painting, sometimes rendering the same image in both media, often reworking a painting as an etching or vice-versa. The thrust of Levin’s life work has been to continue the styles and subjects of the Social Realists (albeit with Fauvist color sensibilities) of the 1930’s into the time and place he lives. His work has been vitally concerned with social commentary and with narrative, even as the art-world tastes of his time have veered diametrically away from them. He appreciates the recent resurgence of Academic realist painting while regretting its general lack of narrative and social commentary. He has kept faith with his earliest inspiration from figures such as Moses Soyer, Fletcher Benton and Edward Hopper.

Museum Collections

Archives of American Art, Washington D.C.
Fine Arts Museum, Santa Fe, N.M.
Roswell Museum, Roswell, N.M.
Harwood Foundation, Taos, N.M.
New Mexico University Museum, Albuquerque, N.M.
Museum of Fine Arts, Cleveland, OH
Arizona State University Fine Arts Museum
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ less