44th Anniversary Sale
Lot 405:
Description
Signed Mon Levinson, Cut Matte board construction from the collection of noted collector and respected gallery owner, Kenneth Dukoff of Niagara Falls, NY
Mon Levinson, Cut Matte board Levinson is know for these works, Op Art sculpture, construction, murals
Monroe Levinson was born on Jan. 6, 1926, in Manhattan. He studied economics at the University of Pennsylvania, earning a B.A. in 1948. He had no plans to be an artist, but became open to the idea in the 1950s while undergoing psychotherapy with Richard Huelsenbeck, a founder of Dada in Berlin who was also a doctor of medicine and psychiatry.
Dr. Huelsenbeck introduced him to the work of Jean Arp and the Russian Constructivists. The Constructivists’ use of nonart materials and geometry would be an important influence.
Mr. Levinson’s first works, which he called "knife drawings, " were constructed from cut and layered whiteboard that created intricate effects of shadow and reflection.
He was included in the "New Forms — New Media" exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York in 1960 and had his first solo show at the Kornblee Gallery in New York in 1961. He was also among the almost 100 artists in "The Responsive Eye, " the Museum of Modern Art’s sprawling survey of Op Art (and Oppish art) in 1965.
In the late 1960s, Mr. Levinson’s pieces increased in scale and decreased in materiality. Using carefully directed lights and a few shaped pieces of plexiglass, he created diffuse effects of light and shadow that functioned as transitory environments. In a review of Mr. Levinson’s 1971 show at Kornblee, Grace Glueck wrote in The New York Times that these works "are immaculately crafted and do no violence to the dictum that less is more."
Mr. Levinson exhibited in 1973 at the John Weber Gallery in SoHo, which represented numerous artists working in dematerialized ways, but the frequency of his exhibitions decreased in the ’80s and ’90s. In 1998 he exhibited at the Mitchell Algus Gallery, then in SoHo, which was dedicated to reviving the careers of neglected artists. His last substantial showing was at D. Wigmore Fine Art in 2012, when he displayed 13 pieces in a three-artist show.
His work is in many public collections, including those of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington.
23.5" Diameter
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Condition: good
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