Marilyn Levine was a Canadian ceramics artist known for her trompe-l'œil art. She built a reputation making ceramic works of art that looked like leather handbags, garments, and briefcases. She was associated with the funk art movement.
Career
Levine grew up in Calgary, Alberta and moved to Edmonton to study chemistry at the University of Alberta where she earned a master's degree in 1959. In 1961, she moved to Regina with her husband, Sidney Levine. Because she was unable to find sufficient employment in the field of chemistry, Levine enrolled in drawing, painting, art history, and pottery courses through the University of Saskatchewan Extension Program. After a trip to California in 1968, she decided to make pottery her career, and she moved to California a year later. She studied sculpture at University of California, Berkeley under the tutelage of Peter Voulkos. It was during this time that she began to develop her trademark realistic style. It was during her time in California that she became associate with the funkart movement. She completed two degrees at the University of California, Berkeley. During her second year at Berkeley, she became focused on inanimate objects as "records of human experience and activity." Levine quickly developed this talent for creating highly realistic representations of leather objects using ceramics, with attention to the fine details of aging, wearing, and shaping of the leather. She taught art a number of universities including UC Berkeley, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Utah. In 1975 she divorced Sidney Levine. In 1976, she moved to Oakland, California and established a studio with Peter Voulkos. During her career she had around 40 solo shows. Her work is held in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, the Australian National Gallery in Canberra and the Montreal Museum of Fine Art. Levine died on 2 April 2005 in Oakland, California, due to mucosal melanoma.
Awards
Levine was awarded the Louise and Adolph Schwenk Memorial Prize for Sculpture in 1969. She received a medal at the International Academy of Ceramics in 1973.
