Illustration Biography

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Laura Levine is a self-taught artist whose award-winning illustrations have appeared in countless magazines as well on the covers of numerous books and CDs (Richard Thompson's Rumour & Sigh, Verve's Essential Jazz Series).

For over a decade Levine has been painting an ongoing series of portraits of contemporary music’s pioneers, which she developed and adapted into a series of children’s books. Honky-Tonk Heroes and Hillbilly Angels: The Pioneers of Country & Western Music, and Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll (Houghton Mifflin; with words by Holly George-Warren). Her first picture book was Wig!, a collaboration with the B-52's (Hyperion Books for Children).

Some of her corporate illustration clients include Sony Playstation, Acer Computer, and Absolut Vodka. Editorial clients include The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Book Review, New York, Blab!, Nickelodeon, Entertainment Weekly, Elle, The Washington Post Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, Parenting, Bloomberg Personal Finance, Utne Reader, Time, Atlantic Monthly , Mademoiselle and Travel and Leisure.

Levine’s paintings have been exhibited worldwide and are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, the House of Blues, and the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. Her work is in numerous private collections, including those of Harry Shearer & Judith Owen, Nora Ephron, Tom Freston/MTV, Lisa Bonet, Laurie & Larry David, and Cher.

The original artwork Levine created for Shake, Rattle & Roll spent a year on exhibit, touring some of the country's finest cultural institutions and galleries including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, The Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle, Yard Dog Folk Art in Austin, and the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas.

Laura Levine’s iconic music photography portraits have appeared in countless magazines, album covers and books, as well as dozens of exhibitions, photography anthologies and published collections of fine art photographs. Laura Levine: Musicians, a one-person show of her work, opens this summer at the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea. Ten of her photographs were recently featured in the exhibition Looking at Music 3.0 at The Museum of Modern Art. Her photographs were recently included in the exhibitions Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present, which originated at the Brooklyn Museum and is currently travelling to six other museums across the U.S. (Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Akron Museum of Art, et. al.) and Backstage Pass: Rock and Roll Photography at the Portland Museum of Art, for which she also contributed an original essay to the exhibition catalogue published byYale University Press. Her work is in the collections of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, The Rudin Foundation/Beth Rudin DeWoody, Jerome de Noirmont, Michael Zilkha and numerous private collections. In 2005 she was the recipient of the Aperture Award from Rave Magazine in India, and her cover for the premiere issue of Blue Magazine was recently named one of the forty top magazine covers in the past forty years by the ASME (American Society of Magazine Editors).

Levine’s short subject and feature-length film documentaries have screened at over a dozen film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

A graduate of Harvard University, in her spare time Levine enjoys foraging for wild mushrooms and yard sale treasures, and is the proprietress of Homer & Langley's Mystery Spot, an antique/ oddities/ junk shop in Phoenicia, N.Y.

Solo Exhibitions (paintings)

La Luz de Jesus, New Work: Honky-Tonk Heroes and Hillbilly Angels; Tweet Suite, Los Angeles, May 2006

Buddy Holly Center, Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll, Lubbock, TX, Summer 2002
Yard Dog Folk Art, Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll, Austin, TX, Spring 2002
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll, Cleveland, Summer/Fall 2001
Phlebus, Phoenicia, NY, Summer 1996
Storyopolis, Los Angeles, September 1995
121 Greene Street, New York, November 1994
Julie Rico Gallery, Los Angeles, November 1993
Julie Rico Gallery, Los Angeles, September 1992
Shirley's, Woodstock, N.Y., summer 1991
The Illustration Gallery, New York, April 1991
Maxwell's, Hoboken, N.J., 1988
La Luz de Jesus, Los Angeles, February 1991

Group Exhibitions (paintings)

Copro/Nason Gallery, The Blab! Show, Santa Monica, CA, September 2005
Museum of American Illustration, 47th Annual Exhibition, February 2005
Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art, From Tale to Manifest, Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennial Exhibition, Abano Terme, Italy, September 2005
Kunstmuseum Luzern, Blab!, Lucerne, Switzerland, April 2005
La Luz de Jesus, artisticUtopia, December 2004
Museum of American Illustration, 46th Annual Exhibition, February 2004
Experience Music Project, Sun Records, Seattle, Spring 2001
Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, America Illustrated, travelling group exhibition, Rome, Italy, March 2000
Storyopolis, Los Angeles, CA, spring 2000
Teatrio Cultural Association, America Illustrated, travelling group exhibition, Venice, Italy, 1999 - 2000
Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea, America Illustrated, travelling group exhibition, Padua, Italy, Nov 1999
Castel Mareccio, America Illustrated, travelling group exhibition, Bolzano, Italy, Nov 1998
Museum of International Folk Art, Lloyd Cotsen permanent collection, The Ordinary & the Extraordinary,Santa Fe, NM, 1999
Storyopolis, Los Angeles, CA, spring 1999
American Primitive Gallery, Not From This Earth: Art, UFO's, and Alien Contact, New York, fall 1997
James Cox Gallery, "Sleepers," Woodstock, NY, summer 1997
Pelham Art Center, "Beyond the Earth: Artists' Visions of Outer Space and UFO's," New York, March 1997
Storyopolis, Los Angeles, June 1996
Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, winter 1995/6
Storyopolis, Los Angeles, February 1996
James Cox Gallery, "Women Artists of Woodstock," Woodstock, NY, summer 1995
Parsons School of Design, "The Women's Room," New York, October 1994
The Woodstock Wall, mural exhibition, Woodstock Festival of Music and Art,
Saugerties, NY, summer 1994
James Cox Gallery, Woodstock, N.Y.,summer 1994
Elsa Mott Ives Gallery, YWCA, "The Child's Play," New York, summer 1994
Every Picture Tells A Story, Los Angeles, summer 1992 James Cox Gallery, Woodstock, N.Y., summer 1992
The Illustration Gallery, New York, summer 1991
Bell Caffe, New York, summer 1991
P.S. 122, New York, April 1991
The Illustration Gallery, New York, October 1990
The Illustration Gallery, New York, June 1990
Museum of American Illustration, New York, 1990
WCA, Salena Gallery, L.I.U.., Brooklyn, 1990
Cork Gallery, Lincoln Center, New York, 1990
Schwartz-Cierlak Gallery, Los Angeles, 1989
New Stone Age, Los Angeles, 1989
Civilisation, New York, 1989
Bridgewater Gallery, New York, 1987
Helio Gallery, New York, 1987
Jon Gerstad Gallery, New York, 1987
Helio Gallery, New York, 1986
Eastman-Wahmendorf Gallery, The 14, New York, 1986
Kraine Club Gallery, New York ,1986
Pompeii Gallery, N.Y., 1986
Pompeii Gallery, New York, l986
Be-Bop Cafe, New York, 1985