Emmanuel Levy

Levy studied art in Manchester, London and Paris. Under Pierre Valette at the Manchester School of Art he was a fellow student of LS Lowry.[1] In the beginning he was interested in Cubism, Expressionism and Surrealism but discarded them later for a more naturalistic style,[2] although within it is range was wide. His central theme was the human condition, in which he produced some powerful works.[3]

Levy’s first exhibition was in 1924 at the Manchester City Gallery, which was to be the first of many both at home and abroad.[4] Among others he had six solo shows in Manchester between 1925–63 plus a number in London. There was a retrospective at Salford City Art Gallery, 1948; another at Fieldborne Galleries, 1976; and one at Stockport Art Gallery, 1982.

From 1929, for several years, he was Art Critic for Manchester City News[5] and the Evening News.[1] His drawings have appeared on television programmes including the series of Magnolia Street, the saga of Jewish life in Hightown and Cheetham by Louis Golding.[6] He was famous for provokante Jewish-themed works, such as the crucifixion which shows a religious Jewish man nailed to the cross[7] painted in 1942.[8]

Levy was a skilled portraitist: His portrait of physicist Patrick Blackett[9] is held in the National Portrait Gallery.[10] Also Ben Uri Gallery and galleries in Manchester, Stockport and Salford hold his work. Levy himself is included in a National Portrait Gallery collection of photographs.[8]

Levy taught art at Victoria University of Manchester School of Architecture, and was a Lecturer at Manchester and Stockport College of Art during the 1950s and 1960s.[1] He was a member of the Manchester Society of Modern Painters and the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts.[11]

The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants was born in Hightown, Manchester, the area immortalized by the Jewish writer Louis Golding in his best-selling novel Magnolia Street (1932), which Levy later adapted as a radio play. His father was the beadle at the Great Synagogue, Cheetham Hill and Levy attended the local Jews’ Free School, before studying.[5]

Emmanuel Levy became married to his fellow artist Ursula Leo (1915-1984). Berliner by birth she came to Britain as a refugee 1939.[12] She had studied art, music and languages in Dresden, Breslau and Paris.[13] Although a talented artist herself, she decided to stand back behind her husband and worked very seldom as a painter herself. She was his most frequent model and promoted his career.[14]

In the paintings ‘The Chessmen’ Levy says of the series “all the world's a chessboard and the chess pieces merely players, each given a part to play and playing it rather badly, expressing the tragedy and confusion of our time without shedding too many tears” . This quotation has been used by a number of critics in their reviews of the twelve paintings.[15]

Works of Levy are held by The National Portrait Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, and six other UK public collections.[10]