David LevinthalFollow This Artist
Born: 1949
Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Lives and Works: New York, NY
Website: www.davidlevinthal.com
Education:
SM, Management Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1981
MFA, Photography, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1973
AB, Studio Art, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 1970
David Levinthal Bio
About The Artist
Vintage Barbie dolls and sports figurines come to life in David Levinthal's photographs. These toy characters act out scenes from graphic novels, war stories, and highly charged political moments. Voyeuristic and often shot like a scene from film noir, Levinthal's subjects have included WWII battle scenes, American blackface figures, baseball heroes, and cultural icons.
"I first began to work with toys as the subject matter for my artwork in 1972 while I was a graduate student in photography at Yale. Initially I was interested in the toys merely as objects. As I continued working I began to try to re-create the feelings of childhood play by photographing toy soldiers on the floor of my bedroom and using simple painted wood blocks to represent buildings and cities. I quickly found that narrow focus that came from photographing objects less than an inch tall gave the toys more life and a sense of realism that was not inherent in them. Setting up the toy figures is just the beginning. The set itself is just the background. It is a scene. And it is within and from that scene that the images themselves are found."
David Levinthal Gallery Art
Galleries
Gering & Lopez Gallery, New York, NY
Augen Gallery, Portland, OR
Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
Conner Contemporary Art, Washington, DC
Daniel Azoulay Gallery, Miami, FL
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
John McWhinnie @ Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, New York, NY
Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottdale, AZ
Ochi Fine Art, Ketchum, ID
Stellan Holm Gallery, New York, NY
Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
David Levinthal Permanent Collections
Select Permanent Collections
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
BankAmerica Corporation, San Francisco, CA
The Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Collection of Eileen and Peter Norton, Santa Monica, CA
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
International Center of Photography, New York, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
David Levinthal Art
Works by the Artist
