Alfred Levitt

1894 - 2000

Originally from the Russian village of Starodub, Alfred Levitt came to the United States in 1911. He settled first in New York and studied at both the Ferrer School in Manhattan and later at the Art Students League. He eventually fell in with a community of artists which also included Milton Avery, Stuart Davis and Hans Hoffman, with whom he studied in 1936. Levitt spent summers in Gloucester during the 1940s applying Cubist concepts to American themes.

While his work drew inspiration from European modernism, Alfred Levitt was also deeply interested in prehistoric cave painting, and became an expert in the field later in life. In 1975 he was awarded a knighthood by the French Order of Arts in letters for a series of photographs he had taken of cave paintings in France and Spain.