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David Levine: Escape
"Besides offering us the delight of recognition, his drawings comfort us, in
an exacerbated and potentially desperate age, with the sense of a watching
presence, an eye informed by an intelligence that has not panicked, a comic
art ready to encapsulate the latest apparitions of publicity as well as
those historical devils who haunt our unease. Levine is one of America's
assets. In a confusing time, he bears witness. In a shoddy time, he does
good work. Here he is." — John Updike Forum Gallery is pleased to present Escape,
an exhibition of the recent works of the essential New York artist,
David Levine. The show will feature watercolors as well as
caricature
drawings. For four decades, Levine’s subject matter has directly been
related to the world he observes – where he lives, wherever he travels and
the people he meets. Perhaps best known for his observation of the
beaches, boardwalks, amusement parks and people of Coney Island (Brooklyn,
New York), Levine’s ability to capture the image of humanity at leisure has
made his watercolors synonymous with Coney Island. He has painted a lifetime
of the work-worn bodies and the plain faces of the people of New York. Coney
Island and all of Brooklyn is, to Levine, what Florence was to the
Renaissance masters. He loves the Brooklyn Bridge, and still finds
inspiration in the Statue of Liberty. Much as he is a painter of “Everyday Man,” Levine is
also recognized as one of the greatest caricaturists of the 20th
Century. Forum Gallery will exhibit forty original
caricature drawings, many of which have appeared in The New York
Review of Books, The New Yorker and Time. David Levine began by freelancing for Esquire in
1958 and since the early 1960’s has become a mainstay at the New York
Review of Books, where he has caricatured great literary, artistic, and
political figures. In his drawings, the subjects of urgent reports by
newscasters and of solemn journalistic examination fly through the air, lay
golden eggs and turn into witches. David Levine estimates that he has done as many as
5,000 drawings, "The hand never stops. When I'm asleep, I have to hold it."
David Levine was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1926
and studied at the Brooklyn Museum of Art School, Pratt Institute, the Tyler
School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia and the Eighth Street
School of New York with Hans Hoffman. His influences run from Will Eisner
and Harold Foster to Edouard Vuillard and Thomas Eakins. David Levine’s many awards began with the Louis Comfort
Tiffany Foundation Award in 1955; the George Polk Memorial Award, a
Guggenheim Fellowship, the Childe Hassam Purchase Prize (American Academy of
Arts and Letters), and the Gold Medal of the American Academy and Institute
of Arts and Letters in 1993. David Levine is represented in the collections of the
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the
Brooklyn Museum, The Newark Museum, the Library of Congress and the National
Portrait Gallery, the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, the National Portrait
Gallery of England and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
David Levine: Escape opens with a reception on February 12
from 5:30 – 7:30 pm, and will be on view through March 20, 2004. A full
color catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
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