JOSEPH LEVIN 1894/1979

SUPERB OIL PAINTING BY RUSSIAN ARTIST JOSEPH LEVIN FORMAT 117/92
Joseph Levin lived not through the 20th century, but through the history of the 20th century. He began his life between the heady, oligarchic Saint Petersburg and the exuberant, motley ant-hill of New York. Born in Saint Petersburg, he grew up there and attended the Imperial Institute of Painting directed by Roerich, where his teachers included Resberg, Moscovici, Navozov and Fimon.
His desire for utopia led him to take part in the Communist revolution in Russia, where he took part in the intellectual ferment that led to the creation of a new society based on concepts that broke with those of the time. After a career committed to this struggle, he found himself, as was the case for many theorists, out of step with the political class, and returned to France in the 20's and 30's, where the artistic effervescence that made the "Paris School" the world center of art prevailed.
Levin found his place in this exceptional milieu, where he rubbed shoulders with modernist thinkers of all origins. We know that the Russian and Jewish communities played a leading role. In 1935, with the rise of extremism, Levin, like many other artists, set sail for America. There, he found many Eastern European Jews who had realized that the old continent was about to be devoured by its old demons, and that the future belonged to the new world. This fracture precipitated a change in him: like the "New York School", he became abstract.
As we can see, Levin's career was shaped by the history of the 20th century, all the more so when, at the end of the 1960s, in the midst of the anti-communist "witch-hunt" in the United States, he returned to settle in France... His stylistic conclusion, in the form of the ultimate utopia, was "Sur-consciencilisme", a new "ism" that is somewhat loaded in terms of terminology, but which defines a personal approach to art based on the addition of the capital experiences of modern art.
We need to reread Joseph Levin to hear the message of the 20th century and its sumptuous artistic epic.

Ref: RBYTCTH71J