An American Abstract Expressionist Painter

John Harrison Levee (April 10, 1924 – January 18, 2017) is a major American abstract expressionist painter who lived and worked in postwar Paris from 1949 until his death in 2017.

Childwood

John Levee was born and grew up in Los Angeles in a family with creative influences from cinema and performing arts. His mother, Roze Levee born Hirschkowitz, was a former silent film actress originally from Montana. His father, Michael Charles Levee (1891 – 1972), was an American film executive in Hollywood and one of the founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and served as President from 1931 to 1932. The Academy is renowned around the world for its annual Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars.

An American Veteran

During World War II, John Harrison Levee joined the U.S. Air Force and completed a military training as a pilot officer on the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. John Levee participated in the liberation of France in 1944 with the U.S. Air Force, serving as a pilot officer between 1944 and 1946.

After the war, John Levee resumed his studies at the University of California (UCLA Art Center School) in 1946 and earned a master's degree in philosophy from UCLA in 1948 at the age of 24, completing the four-year program in just two years through hard work.

While at UCLA, John Levee attended evening painting classes at the Chenard Art School in Los Angeles. 

After graduating, John Levee was offered a career as a commercial pilot by the airlines, which he refused. What he really wanted was to be a painter and see France again - this time as an Artist. 

In 1948, John Levee left California and moved to New York for the New School for Social Research where he studied in 1948-1949 and received a G.I. Bill scholarship.

Paris - France

Supported by the G.I. Bill, John Levee left New York and returned to France in 1949 to continue his artistic education, arriving in Paris like many American painters who settled in postwar Paris. 

From 1949 to 1951, John Levee enrolled at the Académie Julian where he met fellow American artist, Sam Francis, another G.I. Bill recipient exploring abstraction.

Unlike Sam Francis and many other American artists - including Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Carmen Herrera, Paul Jenkins and Mark Tobey - who eventually returned to the United States, John Levee decided to remain permanently in Paris after completing his studies, establishing his studio in Montparnasse. 

Although based in France, John Levee maintained very close ties with the United States. Alongside his artistic activities, he also taught Art at several U.S. Universities: University of Illinois (now University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) in 1965, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1967, New York University in 1967-1968 and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 1970-1971.

Abstract Expressionism and Hard-Edge Painting 

His early work belongs to the Abstract Expressionism associated with the New York School in the 1950s, which included Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston, among others. 

During the 1960s and 1970s, John Levee explored Hard-Edge painting based on geometric abstraction and contributed to its development, before returning to a more spontaneous Abstract Expressionist style in the mid-1980s. 

His later work is typical of Lyrical Abstraction, using broad fields of color, dynamic brushwork, layered surfaces, and collage elements, balancing structural clarity with painterly spontaneity.

International Recognition

John Levee devoted more than 65 years of his life to painting. He established a significant presence in both Europe and North America as well as an international reputation through numerous exhibitions worldwide. 

Throughout his long career, he received many international awards and fellowships.

Today, John Levee is recognized as a major American painter in postwar abstraction who chose Paris as the center of his artistic practice, contributing to the dialogue between American Abstract Expressionism and the School of Paris, and leaving his mark on the history of second half of the 20th-century abstract art. 

John Harrison Levee's work is held in major private and public collections, including the MoMA, the Guggenheim and Whitney museums (New York), among many others.