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Eli Levin, A Brief Biography
Eli Levin has been a realist painter throughout his career. Much of his subject matter is narrative social comment, with major work in still life, landscape and the nude as well. Additionally, he devoted an eight year period to interpretation of ancient Greek myth.
While the greater part of Levin’s work is in the medium of egg tempera, he is prolific in oils, watercolors and intaglio printmaking.
Levin is well known in Santa Fe for his open-studio hosting of weekly drawing groups (one has met continuously since 1969) and of the Santa Fe Etching Club, initiated in 1981.
1938 Born in Chicago, IL to Meyer Levin, author, and Mabel Schamp, Communist,
PhD chemist and university professor; grew up in Manhattan, New York.
1956 Attended Music and Art High School; raised in a milieu of leftist intellectualism; influenced
by the artistic movements of Social Realism and Regionalism.
1958 Attended Brandeis University.
1960 Attended The New School for Social Research; daily painting from the model; instruction by
Raphael Soyer; daily proximity to murals by Orozco and Benton.
1960-62 Attended the Boston Museum School; was asked to leave over his
commitment to Realism.
1964 Moved to New Mexico.
1965-66 Attended Wisconsin University, received M.A. in Art.
1966-on Permanent residence in Santa Fe; numerous exhibitions in local galleries.
1981 Establishes the Santa Fe Etching Club with patronage from print collector Dr. Robert Bell,
an etching facility for Santa Fe printmakers working in his studio.
1985-88 Extended visits to New York for winter classes in artist’s anatomy with Robert Beverley
Hale at the Art Student’s League.
1989-91 Attended St. John’s College, received second M.A. in Liberal Arts.
1993 Changed name to Jo Basiste, after his paternal grandfather’s before immigration.
Initiated a lengthy series of paintings after Greek mythology
which would occupy him for eight years.
2000 Major retrospective exhibit at the Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV.,
with over 120 paintings and an extensive catalog. Began a stylistic return to
social realist themes, painting again under the name Eli Levin. Sold Santa Fe home,
moved to rural Dixon, N.M. while maintaining a Santa Fe studio.
2003 The book Scenes of Santa Fe Night Life published by Bell Tower Editions, a
collection of Levin’s intaglio work.
2007 The book Santa Fe Bohemia, the Art Colony 1964-1980 published by
Sunstone Press; a memoir, written by Levin, of the early Santa Fe art scene.
2008 Opens new studio on Canyon Road in Santa Fe to expand the Santa Fe Etching Club,
offering public access.
2011 With Argos Gallery, opens new expanded community etching studio for local
printmaking (with continued patronage from Robert Bell), and for drawing from the model.
2012 Publishes Disturbing Art Lessons, a memoir of his art education; book signing features a
retrospective exhibit at Argos Gallery.
2013 Museum exhibit at the Harwood Foundation in Taos surveying Levin's intaglio printmaking.
Selected solo exhibits in New Mexico since 1964:
Jamison Gallery, 1972
St. Johns College, 1973
Ernesto Mayans Gallery, 1978-1983
Governor’s Gallery, 1984
Zaplin Lampert Gallery, 1988
Frank Croft Fine Art, 1989-1994
The Cline Gallery, 1992
Wiggins Fine Art, 1996
Retrospective at Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2000
Sara Smith Contemporary, 2002-6
Eldridge, McCarthy Gallery, 2001-5
Argos Etchings and Paintings, 2007--2013
Museum Collections
Archives of American Art, Washington D.C.
Fine Arts Museum, Santa Fe, N.M.
Roswell Museum, Roswell, N.M.
Harwood Foundation, Taos, N.M.
New Mexico University Museum, Albuquerque, N.M.
Museum of Fine Arts, Cleveland, OH
Arizona State University Fine Arts Museum
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
2/2013