Marion Lerner-Levine

Marion Lerner-Levine (born Marion Lerner, October 31, 1931 – October 26, 2023) was a British-born American painter, printmaker, and teacher who created "emotionally expressive" still life paintings in oil and watercolor, which "transform the traditional form of the still life into whimsical portraits of everyday life."

Early life and education Marion Lerner-Levine was born in Hackney, London, England on October 31, 1931, as the daughter of a Polish mother and a Romanian father, LSE economist Abba Lerner. When she was six years old, the family emigrated to the United States because her father was offered a Rockefeller Foundation grant to study economics. During her final year at the Art Institute, she concurrently studied etching and lithography at the Chicago Graphic Workshop. At that time, the definitive character of her art began to emerge. Her oil paintings usually represent arrangements of brightly colored objects, offset by strong areas of white, that are clustered in a manner reminiscent of Giorgio Morandi. for example, features ordinary household items—canned goods—arrayed in a seemingly chaotic pattern, similar to what one might find in any kitchen, which Carolee Thea described as "amusing" and "outside the realm of any pop-art stigma."

For Lerner-Levine, the poetic and visual impact of an appealing arrangement of forms is most important, Even when painting similar groups of objects, each work has its own variation of light, color, and composition. Lerner-Levine has had more than 20 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows in New York and throughout the United States. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Bates College Museum of Art, Rowan University Art Gallery, Bellevue Hospital Center, Bank of America, and many others.

Death Lerner-Levine died on October 26, 2023, five days before her 92nd birthday.