Linda Levi
Encyclopedia
Linda Levi is a Jewish American
artist
who lives and works in Los Angeles
, California
.
Born in Los Angeles, Levi was educated at Los Angeles High School
, University of California, Berkeley
, University of California at Los Angeles, CA., (1958, BA. Cum laude 1960, MA)
, San Francisco, the artists at Ferus Gallery
, Los Angeles, Ed Moses
, Robert Irwin
, Craig Kauffman many who were her friends, and teachers like Adolph Gottlieb
and Richard Diebenkorn
. In 1958, she traveled to New York and through artist Helen Frankenthaler
, she met and visited with well-known artists Mark Rothko
, Sam Francis
, and Ibram Lassaw
. In 1958 and 1959 she won painting and purchase awards at Los Angeles County Museum of Art
and The Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdale Park, Los Angeles. She was included in "Fifty Paintings by Thirty-seven Painters of the Los Angeles Area," UCLA Art Galleries, University of California, Los Angeles
, CA. A 1960 survey of thirty years of Los Angeles Art curated by Henry T. Hopkins future Director of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
.
. She met Jon’s friend, painter and critic, Herman Cherry whom she dated, and sculptor Gabriel Kohn, (exhibited at Leo Castelli
), with whom she lived. Through these artists she met and became friends with leading abstract expressionist artists including Willem de Kooning
and Reuben Kadish
and his wife Barbara Weeks Kadish. With Kohn, she hung out at the Cedar Tavern like the other artists of the day. She also had Los Angeles artist friends who had moved to New York, Jo Baer
and Idelle Weber
Her direction was changed after living in New York City in 1960. She saw that abstract expressionist was coming to an end and began to paint images around her like gas meters and cameras. But that was short lived as she felt that abstract painting was still relevant.
, “Electric Art,” 1969.
, and asked if she’d like to join a small group of women artists to discuss art and exhibit with them. The resulting exhibit “Twenty One Women Artists Invisible/Visible” at the Long Beach Museum of Art
in 1972 was one of the first women artists
’ shows. Levi in 1972 was a founding director of Womanspace in West Los Angeles the first building in Los Angeles to exhibit and discuss women artists. She curated several exhibits there. Womanspace moved into Woman's Building
when it opened in 1973 and closed in 1974. She had an exhibit at the Woman's Building
in 1975 when it was at the old Chouinard Art Institute
building.
In 1975, ABC
television in Los Angeles had a program called Search on which she lectured on “Women Artists of the twentieth Century”.
Levi continued to work with plastic material during the 1970s.
in 1984
to do art and she has continued to work on the computer in the 2000s, using photographs digitally altered, exhibiting the art at Orlando Gallery in Tarzana, California in 2005.
, Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles, University of Nevada, Reno
, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York City, California Institute of the Arts
, and the Library of Congress
.
, businessman, real estate
investor, and historian
, Harris Newmark
. The Newmark clan was one of the founding families of the Los Angeles area. Following in his footsteps in Spring, 2007, she authored for the Western States Jewish History quarterly an article entitled "Linda Levi, Growing Up as a 'Newmark' in Los Angeles, 1935-1950".
In 2007, she donated Newmark and Levi papers and ephemera to the Autry National Center
. She has been encouraged by them to continue writing her autobiography.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
who lives and works in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Born in Los Angeles, Levi was educated at Los Angeles High School
Los Angeles High School
Los Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....
, University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, University of California at Los Angeles, CA., (1958, BA. Cum laude 1960, MA)
Art beginnings
She began as an abstract expressionist influenced by New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, San Francisco, the artists at Ferus Gallery
Ferus Gallery
The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary art gallery operating from 1957-1966. In 1957 it was located at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California...
, Los Angeles, Ed Moses
Ed Moses (artist)
Ed Moses is an American artist based in the Los Angeles area.Born near Long Beach and educated in the mid-1950s at UCLA, Moses was one of the abstract artists with a one-man show at the legendary Los Angeles Ferus Gallery , in the cadre of fellow artists Wallace Berman, Billy Al Bengston, Robert...
, Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin may refer to:* Robert Irwin , Canadian politician* Robert Irwin , American installation artist* Robert Irwin , British historian, novelist and writer on Arabic literature...
, Craig Kauffman many who were her friends, and teachers like Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
and Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
. In 1958, she traveled to New York and through artist Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
, she met and visited with well-known artists Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Sam Francis
Sam Francis
Samuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
, and Ibram Lassaw
Ibram Lassaw
Ibram Lassaw is an American sculptor, known for nonobjective construction in brazed metals.-Biography:Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Russian émigré parents, he went to the U.S. in 1921. His family settled in Brooklyn, New York. He became a US citizen in 1928...
. In 1958 and 1959 she won painting and purchase awards at Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
and The Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdale Park, Los Angeles. She was included in "Fifty Paintings by Thirty-seven Painters of the Los Angeles Area," UCLA Art Galleries, University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, CA. A 1960 survey of thirty years of Los Angeles Art curated by Henry T. Hopkins future Director of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
.
New York City
She moved to New York in 1960, and leased the studio of Jon SchuelerJon Schueler
Jon Schueler was an American artist.-Biography:Schueler was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He first had the desire to become a writer, and after he acquired his Masters degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1940, he worked for a short time as a journalist...
. She met Jon’s friend, painter and critic, Herman Cherry whom she dated, and sculptor Gabriel Kohn, (exhibited at Leo Castelli
Leo Castelli
Leo Castelli was an American art dealer. He was best known to the public as an art dealer whose gallery showcased cutting edge Contemporary art for five decades...
), with whom she lived. Through these artists she met and became friends with leading abstract expressionist artists including Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
and Reuben Kadish
Reuben Kadish
Reuben Kadish was an American artist, specializing as a sculptor, draughtsman, muralist, painter, and printmaker. In his later career he also taught art history and sculpture in New York.-Early life:...
and his wife Barbara Weeks Kadish. With Kohn, she hung out at the Cedar Tavern like the other artists of the day. She also had Los Angeles artist friends who had moved to New York, Jo Baer
Jo Baer
Josephine Gail "Jo" Baer, born Josephine Kleinberg August 7, 1929, is an American artist, whose works are associated with minimalist art...
and Idelle Weber
Idelle Weber
Idelle Weber is an American artist most closely aligned with the Pop art and Photorealist movements.-Biography:Weber was born in Chicago, IL in 1932. She attended Scripps College in Claremont, California, and UCLA, where she received a BA in 1954 and an MA in 1955...
Her direction was changed after living in New York City in 1960. She saw that abstract expressionist was coming to an end and began to paint images around her like gas meters and cameras. But that was short lived as she felt that abstract painting was still relevant.
Los Angeles
Upon her return to Los Angeles, she began to paint abstract imagery using many mediums like paint and plastic, wood, and worked with light and kinetic movement. She had her first gallery show in 1965 at Esther Robles gallery in Los Angeles. In the 1960s she was part of the Los Angeles movement of plastic and light artists and was included in many exhibits dealing with these materials, i.e., the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, “Plastics as Plastics,” and Phoenix Art MuseumPhoenix art museum
The Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States' largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western...
, “Electric Art,” 1969.
The Women’s Movement in Los Angeles
Early in the 1970s, she was contacted by her friend, Judy ChicagoJudy Chicago
Judy Chicago is a feminist artist, author, and educator.Chicago has been creating artwork since the mid 1960s. Her earliest forays into the art world coincided with the rise of Minimalism, which she eventually abandoned in favor of art she believed to have greater content and relevance...
, and asked if she’d like to join a small group of women artists to discuss art and exhibit with them. The resulting exhibit “Twenty One Women Artists Invisible/Visible” at the Long Beach Museum of Art
Long Beach Museum of Art
The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Boulevard in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California. The museum occupies the historic 1912 Elizabeth Milbank Anderson house and carriage house and a new two-story pavilion, and includes oceanfront gardens. The museum is open...
in 1972 was one of the first women artists
Women artists
Women artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
’ shows. Levi in 1972 was a founding director of Womanspace in West Los Angeles the first building in Los Angeles to exhibit and discuss women artists. She curated several exhibits there. Womanspace moved into Woman's Building
Woman's Building
The Woman's Building was an non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levrant de...
when it opened in 1973 and closed in 1974. She had an exhibit at the Woman's Building
Woman's Building
The Woman's Building was an non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levrant de...
in 1975 when it was at the old Chouinard Art Institute
Chouinard Art Institute
The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 in Los Angeles, California, by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard .-Founder:...
building.
In 1975, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television in Los Angeles had a program called Search on which she lectured on “Women Artists of the twentieth Century”.
Levi continued to work with plastic material during the 1970s.
The 1980s
In the 1980s Levi used wood and other materials to create non-objective imagery and exhibited these in group shows and in a solo show at Cerritos CollegeCerritos College
Cerritos College is a public comprehensive community college founded in 1955 located in Norwalk, California. It was named after Rancho Los Cerritos, a ranch that served prominently in the region in the 19th century...
in 1984
The 1990s and 2000s
During the 1990s, she was one of the first fine artists to use the computerComputer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
to do art and she has continued to work on the computer in the 2000s, using photographs digitally altered, exhibiting the art at Orlando Gallery in Tarzana, California in 2005.
Art exhibits
Levi has been included in many group shows, galleries, and museums and represented by many dealers over the course of her 40 year career including the San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
, Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles, University of Nevada, Reno
University of Nevada, Reno
The University of Nevada, Reno , is a teaching and research university established in 1874 and located in Reno, Nevada, USA...
, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York City, California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
, and the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
Pioneer Newmark Family
Levi is the great great granddaughter of Los Angeles pioneerAmerican pioneer
American pioneers are any of the people in American history who migrated west to join in settling and developing new areas. The term especially refers to those who were going to settle any territory which had previously not been settled or developed by European or American society, although the...
, businessman, real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
investor, and historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, Harris Newmark
Harris Newmark
Harris Newmark was a Prussian-American businessman, philanthropist, and historian. Born in Löbau in Province of Saxony Newmark emigrated to the United States in 1853, sailed from Europe to New York City to San Francisco, and finally settled in Los Angeles...
. The Newmark clan was one of the founding families of the Los Angeles area. Following in his footsteps in Spring, 2007, she authored for the Western States Jewish History quarterly an article entitled "Linda Levi, Growing Up as a 'Newmark' in Los Angeles, 1935-1950".
In 2007, she donated Newmark and Levi papers and ephemera to the Autry National Center
Autry National Center
The Autry National Center of the American West is an intercultural center and museum in Los Angeles, California that celebrates the diversity and history of the American West through three important institutions: the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the American West, and the...
. She has been encouraged by them to continue writing her autobiography.
Reviews
- Wurdemann, Helen. "Hopkins UCLA Show Outstanding." Los Angeles Mirror News Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, April. 1960. - Seldes, Henry J. Art Walk, The Los Angeles Times, Fri. Nov.15, 1968, Part IV. Esther Robles Gallery.
- Nix, Marilyn, "Artists Invisible/Visible, Art Week, April 22, 1972, Volume 3 Number 17.
- Muchnic, Suzanne. "Plastic Perspective." Art Week, 1977
- Snyder Susan R. Los AngelesLos ÁngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
IV:3, 12-14 Nov.1965 Art Forum - Danieli, Fidel " Setting The Scene For The Sixties." Images and Issues, Fall, 1981 pg. 37
External links
- Linda Levi Web Site http://homepage.mac.com/lindalevi/Menu4.html
- Focus Gallery for Digital Art http://www.tomrchambers.com/index-145.html