Marilyn Levine

Marilyn Levine (22 December 1935, Medicine Hat, Alberta – 2 April 2005, Oakland, California) 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. 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. She completed two degrees at the University of California, Berkeley (MA, 1970; MFA, 1971). During her second year at Berkeley, she became focused on inanimate objects (particularly leather items) as "records of human experience and activity."

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.