14″x11″ watercolor on 140lb. Arches paper
This piece is AVAILABLE. Please email me at CokerArt@yahoo.com for price.
“I was given a tremendous amount of credit for having unbelievable insights, more than any known shrink could hope ever to have. I might have stumbled on something, but really wasn’t something you could count on and call ‘insight’.” -David Levine, 1926-2009
This is a caricature I did back in 2008 of famed caricaturist, David Levine. In my mind he was the best caricaturist that ever lived and influenced my work like no other. I heard a couple of weeks ago that he had died in late December 2009. I was crushed. His work in The New York Review of Books, which numbered 3,800 pieces, was what introduced me to caricature and gave me the direction my life would take. I told the story on a previous post, but to recap, I saw an edition of TNYRB laying on the desk of a reporter in the newsroom. I was a lowly copy boy, my first year in the business, 1973. I stopped to peruse the edition and after seeing Mr. Levine’s amazingly deft pen & ink line work in the faces of then, current history makers, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, I knew I had to learn more.
Eventually, I moved into the art department and never looked back. It took me a couple of years to really get a handle on pen & ink, but it became my bread and butter until newspapers began using color in the early 1980s. In the early 1990s Mr. Levine came to my hometown, Columbus, GA, to lecture at Columbus State University on the occasion of a one-man show of his work. After the lecture I made my way to him and waited patiently, listening to his every word, awaiting the moment I had often dreamed of. When I finally got my chance, I introduced myself and told him I worked for the local paper and that he was the reason I’m not driving a truck. He laughed a shy laugh and said something self-deprecating. He was charming and all that I hoped he would be. He autographed a hand-out card of one of his images for me as we talked and was gracious and encouraging. I will never forget that evening and the feelings I had being in a room surrounded by original Levine’s and in the presence of the man that created them. For me, had I been a young pianist, it would have been like meeting Beethoven. Thank you, Mr. Levine, I’ll be looking for those lines in the sky. Rest well. Enjoy!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/arts/design/30levine.html
http://www.nybooks.com/gallery/
Truly a great artist and an inspiration for generations to come!
What a wonderful memory to have of meeting this amazing man. I’d have given my eye teeth to have spent an evening with him. I learned so much about pushing the bounds of watercolor and portraiture from studying his books. I still refer to his paintings of the tailors, and figures on the beach. I adore his figurative work as much as the charicatures. Such humanity and heart in his paintings. It’s really heartening to hear that he was as nice and gracious in person as you found him to be. Great tribute to a great man, Don.
Thank you, LIz. He was an amazing painter too. I too perused a dog-eared copy of his book, The Arts of David Levine, from the library for years until my lovely daughter, Lindsay and her hubby Brian, gave me a pristine copy for my birthday last year! I treasure that book.