Levine, Jack [key], 1915–2010, American painter, b. Boston. Levine began his career with the Federal Arts Project. His savagely realistic paintings, executed with diffused, prismatic textural effects, treat social themes in a bitter, satirical vein. The persons he portrays—politicians, plutocrats, gangsters, and others—are the essence of corruption: withered and distorted, yet glittering. Among his most celebrated paintings are Gangster Funeral (Whitney Mus., New York City), The Feast of Pure Reason and Election Night (both: Mus. of Modern Art, New York City), Welcome Home (Brooklyn Mus.), and The Trial (Art Inst., Chicago).
See study by K. W. and E.-S. Prescott (1984); D. Sutherland, dir., Jack Levine: The Feast of Pure Reason (documentary film, 1985).
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