Painter and printmaker Jack Levine was born to Lithuanian immigrant parents in Boston’s South End. His prodigious natural talent was accompanied by high disdain for pretense and hypocrisy wherever it might be found, which informed his staunch figurative style. At age fourteen, Levine began art studies under Denman Ross at Harvard University, and found employment in the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts program; two of his paintings from that era were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1936. The following year, another of his paintings was acquired by MOMA for its permanent collection, the first of many such acquisitions by leading American institutions, accompanied by important exhibitions of his work at galleries and museums on both sides of the Atlantic.

Social consciousness infused Levine’s work, with emphasis on such issues as civil rights in America, prison conditions in Spain, and the human condition in general. He died in New York City, where he had lived for many years.