David Levine's Drawings

May 29, 2003 9:49 AM

When Most Of The Reviews (And Indeed Books) Are Long Since Forgotten, David Levine's extraordinary portraits of the public figures and obsessions of the last 40 years will stand as a lasting impression of our literary and political lions, masters, avatars and bugbears. The generous and ever essential New York Review of Books offers us a complete and fully searchable gallery of the great caricaturist's work since its first issue hit the stands back in 1963 - almost 2,000 cartoons in all. It's fascinating to trace the sequence and evolution of Levine's drawings through the years of particular figures: Nabokov and Beckett, for instance.
posted by MiguelCardoso (10 comments total)

[ My 300th post, btw! I have to thank Matt and the community for the great pleasure and stimulation that MetaFilter has given me from the first day I started reading - and for putting up with me and my excesses. Thank you with all my soul, guys!]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:56 AM on May 29, 2003

Tullio Pericoli can kick Levine's ass every day of the week
Twice on a Sunday
posted by matteo at 10:28 AM on May 29, 2003

Great link, MC. I especially enjoyed sampling the images in chronological order to watch his skill and talent grow through the years.
posted by gwint at 10:45 AM on May 29, 2003

Thanks, Miguel. I've been looking for caricature sites recently. I'm surprised to see such an extensive collection, it is fascinating in its scope. Worthwhile simply as a study of the evolution of Philip Roth's hair and eyebrows.
posted by TimTypeZed at 10:49 AM on May 29, 2003

I especially love this caricature of an intense Beethoven. It's classilicious.

MiguelCardoso has posted 300 links and 3000 comments to MetaFilter and 100 threads and 2000 comments to MetaTalk.
My goodness, was the perfect harmony intentional, Migs? It's like a lunar eclipse -- rare and remarkable to behold.
posted by Ljubljana at 10:58 AM on May 29, 2003

What happened to the NYRB anyhow? A few years ago it was well over a hundred pages and full of long articles that were always fascinating to read. Now it's lucky to make fifty pages, the articles are much shorter and less in-depth, and I have seemed to find a smaller fraction to be interesting. Anyone know what has been going on over there?
posted by cameldrv at 12:22 PM on May 29, 2003

Cameldrv, Here's what I think: The Cold War ended, and Marxism and socialism, which provided the text of intellectual culture for the previous 100 years or so, petered out, costing NYRB (along with every other intellectual outlet) a lot of momentum. Bush-hating, war-opposing, and environmentalism just haven't been able to replace the incredible traction NYRB enjoyed at the height of the Vietnam, Nixon and Reagan years. Throughout it all, however, David Levine has continued to class-up its pages, and provide the continuity that -- to tell you the truth -- is one of the strongest contributors to NYRB's continuing cachet.
posted by Faze at 1:29 PM on May 29, 2003

nice.
posted by mcsweetie at 4:32 PM on May 29, 2003

This is great - thanks Miguel.
posted by plep at 5:46 AM on May 30, 2003

Miguel, I didn't really think you'd go for it, let alone come in bang on target. Nicely played, sir, nicely played.
posted by rory at 5:58 PM on May 30, 2003