Josef Levi

Who is Josef Levi?

Josef Alan Levi is an American artist whose works range over a number of different styles, but which are unified by certain themes consistently present among them. Levi began his artistic career in the 1960s and early '70s, producing highly abstract and very modernist pieces: these employing exotic materials such as light fixtures and metallic parts. By 1975, Levi had transitioned to painting and drawing still lifes. At first these were, traditionally, of mundane subjects. Later, he would depict images from art history, including figures originally created by the Old Masters. Around 1980, he made another important shift, this time toward creating highly precise, though subtly altered reproductions of pairs of female faces which were originally produced by other artists. It is perhaps this work for which he is most well known. Since around 2000, Josef Levi has changed the style of his work yet again: now he works entirely with computers, using digital techniques to abstract greatly from art history, and also from other sources.

Two of the most important themes of Josef Levi's artwork are recognized to be: the female form, especially the face; and the similarities in visual aesthetics which transcend cultures. Indeed, since the date his first creations, the vast majority of Levi's material has been taken from female characters in the art of others; and often multiple works are combined in his pieces in order to highlight the relations between the original works. Furthermore, he has been inspired by a great variety of other artists. Levi's works of art in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Albright-Knox Museum, among many others. Levi's art has been featured on the cover of Harper's Magazine twice, once in June 1987, and once in May 1997.