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Matvey Levenstein

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  • Biography
    View works. Matvey Levenstein, After the Rain, 2024
    After the Rain, 2024
    View works
    Born in Moscow, U.S.S.R., 1960
    Lives & Works in New York, New York
    Download Selected Press (PDF, opens in a new tab.)
    Download Artist CV (PDF, opens in a new tab.)
  • Matvey Levenstein’s delicate and exquisitely rendered paintings explore themes of history and representation. His paintings and works on paper are...
    Matvey Levenstein’s delicate and exquisitely rendered paintings explore themes of history and representation. His paintings and works on paper are filtered through the most traditional painterly genres—the landscape, the still life, and the portrait—and are imbued with a distinctly literary sensitivity; they are quiet meditations on the relevance of Romanticism in the 21st Century. 

    Levenstein chooses his subjects intuitively, drawing from his immediate surrounds, preoccupations, and friends. Beginning with snapshots, he captures a scene’s formal properties—be it an old pilgrim cemetery, or a nave in an empty church, or a sunset on the beach—before beginning his material investigation. Working with a limited palette on toned grounds, Levenstein’s distinctive compositions are characterized by the layers of paint built up and scraped back slowly and meticulously over many months, and by their foregrounding of nature in all its dramatic variety: the looming power of a storm cloud, tree branches dissecting a winter sky, and more quietly, a vase of cut flowers sitting on a glass table. Levenstein’s work ranges in size and materials, including large sumi ink drawings, and smaller, delicate works realized on linen, copper, and wood.
  • In 2023, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation named Levenstein a recipient of its prestigious 2022 Biennial Grant. Established in 1918,... In 2023, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation named Levenstein a recipient of its prestigious 2022 Biennial Grant. Established in 1918,... In 2023, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation named Levenstein a recipient of its prestigious 2022 Biennial Grant. Established in 1918,... In 2023, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation named Levenstein a recipient of its prestigious 2022 Biennial Grant. Established in 1918,... In 2023, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation named Levenstein a recipient of its prestigious 2022 Biennial Grant. Established in 1918,...
    In 2023, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation named Levenstein a recipient of its prestigious 2022 Biennial Grant. Established in 1918, the Foundation inaugurated its biennial competition in 1980 and remains one of the largest single sources of grants for artists working in the United States today. 

    Levenstein was born in 1960 in Moscow, U.S.S.R. and lives and works in New York City. He received his M.F.A. at Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT, after attaining a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, and the Moscow Architectural Institute, Moscow, U.S.S.R. He is included in the recent publications Landscape Painting Now by Todd Bradway and (Nothing but) Flowers published by Karma with essays by Hilton Als, Helen Molesworth and David Rimanelli. Levenstein has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, honors and residencies. These include the Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome, Rome (2003); the Penny McCall Foundation Award, New York (2002); the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Studio Grant (1998); the Katherine J. Horwitch Grant, Jewish Foundation (1985-1987); and the Anna Louise Raymond Traveling Fellowship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (1983).
  • Works
    Matvey Levenstein, Pilgrims, 2018

    Matvey Levenstein

    Pilgrims, 2018
    oil on linen
    12 x 9 inches
    30.5 x 22.9 cm
    Copyright The Artist
  • Exhibitions
    • Matvey Levenstein: Zone

      Matvey Levenstein: Zone

      September 4 – 28, 2024 514 West 28th Street, New York
      In Matvey Levenstein's new intimately-scaled paintings his intuitive familiarity with his chosen subject matter presents fictionalized impressions of his environment, both interiors and landscapes. Working in layers on toned grounds, Levenstein's paintings achieve a cinematic sensibility, encouraging close looking to unearth their poetic investigations of place.
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    • Matvey Levenstein

      Matvey Levenstein

      September 9 – October 9, 2021 297 Tenth Avenue, New York
      Kasmin is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Matvey Levenstein. Composed of paintings depicting scenes drawn from the artist’s life in New York City and Orient, a hamlet on the tip of the North Fork of Long Island, the exhibition will go on view at the gallery’s 297 Tenth Avenue location on September 9, 2021. This is Levenstein’s second solo exhibition at Kasmin.
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    • Matvey Levenstein

      Matvey Levenstein

      January 24 – March 2, 2019
      Kasmin is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Matvey Levenstein, on view at 293 Tenth Avenue between January 24 - March 2, 2019. Levenstein’s work depicts scenes from his life on the North Fork of Long Island and explores themes of history and representation. The paintings speak to the relevance of Romanticism in the 21st Century, and act as quiet meditations on the immigrant experience filtered through the most traditional painterly genres: the landscape, the still life and the portrait. Imbued with a distinctly literary sensitivity and sincerity, the exhibition brings together a selection of new works ranging in size and materials, including large sumi ink drawings, and smaller, delicate works realized on linen, copper, and wood. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.
      View More
  • News
    • Matvey Levenstein: Zone reviewed in Artforum

      Matvey Levenstein: Zone reviewed in Artforum

      by Barry Schwabsky November 1, 2024 View More
    • Matvey Levenstein: Zone in The Brooklyn Rail

      Matvey Levenstein: Zone in The Brooklyn Rail

      by Alex Grimley October 2, 2024
      Matvey Levenstein’s paintings depart in a similar manner. Distance is a primary characteristic of his art, but it is not the distance of irony or detachment. It is, rather, that of memory, of nostalgia, realized in painterly terms. Though the small scale of these works draws us closer, the surface and scene seem to dissolve rather than gain in definition as one approaches. The soft edges of mist shrouded trees and distant telephone poles blur with proximity, like the paint surface itself, which reveals little of the artist’s brushwork.
      View More
    • Matvey Levenstein and Victor Levenstein in conversation at The Jewish Musuem

      Matvey Levenstein and Victor Levenstein in conversation at The Jewish Musuem

      March 4, 2023 View More
    • Matvey Levenstein Receives Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2022 Biennial Grant

      Matvey Levenstein Receives Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2022 Biennial Grant

      March 1, 2023
      Kasmin is pleased to announce that Matvey Levenstein has been named a recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2022 Biennial Grant.
      View More
    • Announcing Representation of Matvey Levenstein

      Announcing Representation of Matvey Levenstein

      February 16, 2019 View More
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info@kasmingallery.com

 

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On view from The High Line at 27th Street
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