Colombians and Europeans alike will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of renowned watercolor painter Kurt Levy on September 23, 2011, the Ludwig Mider Jewish Museum announced.
The Ludwig Mieder Jewish Museum in Frankfurt, Germany will honor what would be Levy’s 100th birthday with an exhibition of Levy’s “extensive artistic legacy” from September 13 to November 6, 2011.
The artist was born in Germany in 1911, but spent most of his painting career in Colombia. He is celebrated for his watercolor landscapes of the Colombian countryside.
“I found the light of the Caribbean a splendid occasion for the great adventure of painting,” Levy said at an exhibition in Bogota in 1959.
The Jewish painter fled Europe in 1935 and settled in Colombia, where he supported his artistic pursuits by working as a lithographer.
Levy’s painting career took off in 1947 with his first solo exhibition at the Biblioteca Nacional de Bogota.
He accepted a position to work as a professor of drawing and watercolor painting at the University of Barranquilla, in northern Colombia, in 1956. The artist also lived in Medellin for several years, working as a painting and drawing instructor at Centro Colombo Americano.
Levy’s Colombian landscapes, which he described as concise and unsentimental, have been exhibited all over the country.