Israel Levitan was an American abstract expressionist sculptor, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
12 Facts About Israel Levitan
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Israel Levitan left home at an early age to travel around the United States, Canada and Mexico.
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In 1934 Israel Levitan settled in Detroit, Michigan where he took a job as an auto worker.
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In 1939 after a successful career in boxing, Israel Levitan began to study art at the Chicago Art Institute, but his studies were interrupted by World War II.
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Israel Levitan joined the service as a medical corpsman in the South Pacific and became interested in physical therapy.
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Hofmann, recognizing the three-dimensional aspects of Israel Levitan's paintings, suggested that Israel Levitan experiment with sculpture.
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Hoffman set out to find an appropriate teacher for his protegee and shortly thereafter Israel Levitan commenced sculpture studies at the atelier of the French master Ossip Zadkine in Paris from 1950 to 1951.
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Israel Levitan exhibited his work in the Tenth Street galleries, along with such contemporaries as Gabriel Kohn, Raoul Hague, Sidney Geist, and Louise Nevelson.
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Unlike most of the artists who worked in wood during the fifties, Israel Levitan had been a painter for many years.
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Israel Levitan had one-man shows at the Artists' Gallery, the Wayhe Gallery, the Barone Gallery and the Grand Central Moderns all in New York City; at the University of California, Berkeley, the Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
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Israel Levitan works are in the permanent collections of museums, including the Guild Hall Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and in private collections throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.
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Israel Levitan illustrated at least one book named, On Waking Up: Notes From One Searcher to Another.