LEVINE, JACK

born Jan. 3, 1915, Boston, Mass., U.S. painter prominent in the American Social Realist school of the 1930s. Trained first at the Jewish Welfare Center, Roxbury, Mass., and later at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, from 1929 to 1931 he studied at Harvard University. In 1935 Levine joined the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project. He set up his studio in the slums of Boston, where he painted the poor and satirically portrayed corrupt politicians. Technically, he was influenced by the dramatic distortions of the European Expressionists. His Brain Trust, exhibited in 1936, and The Feast of Pure Reason, the following year, brought him to prominence. His first one-man show was held in 1939 in New York City. The Trial (195354), Gangster Funeral (195253), The Patriarch of Moscow on a Visit to Jerusalem (1975), and the triptych Panethnikon (1978), depicting an imaginary meeting of the United Nations Security Council) continued his vein of biting social satire. It was because of Levine's satirical tendency that he drew sharp criticism from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for some of his works in a State Department show in Moscow in 1959. Interestingly, the Vatican demonstrated a greater appreciation for Levine's work. In 1973, upon the purchase of his Cain and Abel canvas, Levine was told by Pope Paul VI that his work would always be welcome in the Vatican Museuman unusual distinction for an American artist. In 1978 New York City's Jewish Museum held a retrospective exhibit in honour of Levine. Levine married the painter Ruth Gikow, and their daughter Susanna also became an artist.