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Artwork Details
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Title:Medicine Show
Artist:Jack Levine (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1915–2010 New York)
Date:1955–56
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:72 × 63 in. (182.9 × 160 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Hugo Kastor Fund, 1956
Object Number:56.233
Inscription: Signed (lower left): J. Levine
the artist, New York (1956; sold through the Alan Gallery, New York to MMA)
New York. Alan Gallery. "Opening Exhibition 1956–1957," September 5–29, 1956, no. 12.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "1956 Annual Exhibition: Sculpture, Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings," November 14, 1956–January 6, 1957, no. 117 (lent by the Alan Gallery).
Pittsfield, Mass. Berkshire Museum. "Paintings by Jack Levine," July 2–31, 1963, no. 7.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors from the Museum's Collections," October 1–December 7, 1969, no catalogue.
Bronx County Courthouse. "Paintings from the Metropolitan, Pinturas del Metropolitano," May 12–June 13, 1971, no. 13.
Moscow. State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. "Representations of America," December 15, 1977–February 15, 1978, no catalogue.
Leningrad. State Hermitage Museum. "Representations of America," March 15–May 15, 1978, no catalogue.
Minsk, Belarus. Palace of Art. "Representations of America," June 15–August 15, 1978, no catalogue.
New York. Jewish Museum. "Jack Levine Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics," November 8, 1978–January 28, 1979, no. 39.
West Palm Beach, Fla. Norton Gallery and School of Art. "Jack Levine Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics," February 17–April 8, 1979, no. 39.
Memphis, Tenn. Brooks Memorial Art Gallery. "Jack Levine Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics," April 30–June 17, 1979, no. 39.
Montgomery, Ala. Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. "Jack Levine Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics," July 9–August 26, 1979, no. 39.
Portland, Ore. Portland Art Museum. "Jack Levine Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics," September 17–November 4, 1979, no. 39.
St. Paul. Minnesota Museum of American Art. "Jack Levine Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics," November 26, 1979–January 13, 1980, no. 39.
"Art: Poison in the Sky." Time (September 24, 1956), p. 74, ill.
Dorothy Adlow. "Wide View of Modern Work Found in Whitney Annual." Christian Science Monitor (November 24, 1956), p. 16.
Emily Genauer. "New Art Season Looks Lively." New York Herald Tribune (September 9, 1956), p. E10.
Stuart Preston. "Among Early Shows." New York Times (September 9, 1956), p. X11, ill.
Robert Beverly Hale. "The American Moderns." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 16 (Summer 1957), ill. p. 24.
Albert Ten Eyck Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1957, p. 29.
Dorothy Adlow. "Metropolitan's New Look." Christian Science Monitor (October 26, 1957), p. 10.
Irwin Lefcourt. "Letters. Shahn and Levine." Arts Magazine 34 (October 1959), p. 7.
Selden Rodman. Conversations with Artists. New York, 1961, pp. 195–96, states that when the artist was interviewed in 1956 this painting was tentatively titled "The Product Involved"; quotes the artist's remark that "veleno" (the Italian word for poison) printed on the cigarette tray in the picture is Levine's "invention as a trade name for commercialism".
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide to the Collections: American Paintings. New York, 1962, p. 30, fig. 44.
"Jack Levine Show Planned at Museum." Berkshire Eagle (June 27, 1963), p. 6.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, pp. 114–15, ill., quotes the artist as saying, "This tableau while (I hope) plausible, is not based on any situation seen recently. It is based partly on memory, partly on rule, and somewhat on fantasy.".
Frank Getlein. Jack Levine. New York, 1966, p. 21, colorpl. 80, describing the canvas as a portrayal of "the basic operation of fraud upon the gullible," suggests that the central figure resembles Honoré Daumier's Robert Macaire and remarks that the surrounding environment evokes the artist's native Boston.
Albert C. Santy. "Introduction to the American Edition." Medicine in Art: A Cultural History. Ed. Jean Rousselot. New York, 1967, p. 11, ill.
Edgar J. Driscoll, Jr. "The Art World: Held's Flappers Back." Boston Globe (January 14, 1968), p. A23.
James F. Pilgrim. Paintings from the Metropolitan, Pinturas del Metropolitano. Exh. cat., Bronx County Courthouse. New York, 1971, unpaginated, no. 13.
Henry Freedman. "Jack Levine: Painter and Protestor." PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1974, p. 65, pl. 55.
"Jack Levine: Retrospective Exhibit." Jewish Advocate (November 2, 1978), p. A3, ill.
A. Hyatt Mayor. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Favorite Paintings. New York, 1979, pp. 110–11, ill. (color).
Paul Von Blum with editorial assistance and contributions by Mark Resnick. The Critical Vision: A History of Social and Political Art in the U.S. Boston, 1982, pp. 76–77, fig. 4-1.
Jack Levine. Jack Levine. Ed. Stephen Robert Frankel. New York, 1989, pp. 70–71, 131, ill. p. 69 (color).
John L. Ward. American Realist Painting, 1945–1980. Ann Arbor, 1989, pp. 33, 37, fig. 19.
Judith A. Bookbinder. "Figurative Expressionism in Boston and Its Germanic Cultural Affinities: An Alternative Modernist Discourse On Art and Identity." PhD diss., Boston University, 1998, pp. 215–17, fig. 4-42.
Andrew Hemingway. Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement 1926–1956. New Haven, 2002, pp. 256, 258, fig. 183.
This painting was preceded by a smaller version now in the Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1956.2), and there is another smaller version in the Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kans. (M157.59).
Charles Sheeler (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1883–1965 Dobbs Ferry, New York)
1931
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