Edward Levine, Little Freeway. Acrylic on canvas.
July 10, 2019
Edward Levine, Little Freeway. Acrylic on canvas.
Detroit native Edward Levine (1928-2016) had a patchy relationship with painting. After being interested in art from a young age, he decided to give up painting and start a successful business selling truck parts. His twin brother and poet, Philip Levine, criticized him for this. After his fifteen-year hiatus, Levine returned to painting. His style did not sit heavily in realism, as he often drew inspiration from mere artifice.
Levine’s paintings were often metaphorical and flexible. In the late 80s, he worked on a series of paintings called Dogs of Detroit. He chose to paint dogs that were astray, referencing them as the icons of urban survival. A few years after the Dogs of Detroit series, he started painting Native Americans in full regalia. He would often paint them in urban settings to show the merging of two different worlds. The idea for the series came from one of his travels to Santa Fe where he happened across a competition for ceremonial regalia.
This piece was gifted to the Wayne State University Art Collection by Kathleen Sharma.
Written by Marissa Nicole Gannascoli