Aaron Levine, a retired attorney who, with his wife Barbara, amassed one of Marcel Duchamp’s most important private business holdings, died Tuesday morning at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., at the age of 88.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden confirmed Levine’s death, writing in a statement, “The Hirshhorn mourn the loss of Aaron Levine, a great friend, art enthusiast, and leader. Along with his beloved wife Barbara, Aaron transformed the Hirshhorn permanent collection by sharing their dual passions for conceptual art, not Particularly through the promised gift of 2018 of 35 works by Marcel Duchamp, With The Nation. He understood Hirschhorn’s mission and his radical gestures. We are indebted to Aaron’s public service, his intelligence and wisdom, and we will never forget him.”
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Levins, who are listed ARTnewsEach year’s Top 200 Collectors List, from 2012 to 2018, filled their home in Washington, D.C. with hundreds of works of art and thousands of related catalogs and rare artist books, many focused on the powerful concepts and contemporary successors of the movement. Aaron once said, “Conceptual art is an acquired taste.”
Artists they have collected include Donald Judd, Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner, On Kawara, Bruce Nauman, Christian Marclay, Rebecca Horn, Juan Muñoz, Ragnar Kjartansson, Douglas Gordon, Ana Mendieta, Tony Cragg, Thomas Schott, Marina Abramović and Ulay . They also had important photographic collections, such as Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand, Diane Arbus, William Eggleston, Thomas Struth, Thomas Demand and Cindy Sherman.
However, the couple did acquire works by some notable artists, including Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polk, and Andy Warhol. A Warhol portrait of Joseph Beuys hung above his mantle and a collection of 10 Warhol portraits of Chairman Mao in the master bedroom. Another Warhol hung out in Aaron’s law office, as did other spillovers from the group.
Because the art they owned was so varied in style and eras, Levin hated it when people called their holdings a “collection”; Aaron Tell Artnet News In 2018 his favorite term is “mix”.
In an interview, distributor Sean Kelly, a longtime friend and advisor to Finney’s, said, “Aaron was absolutely unique – and unique in the art world. He was a great patron of art in the ancient sense of the word. He and Barbara traveled all over the world constantly. They were tireless – keeping up.” It was challenging and fun at the same time. Once he discovered contemporary art, his life took a completely different turn, and defined the rest of his life. For me, he was the heart and soul of the art world – and consciousness at the same time. I don’t think we’ll see the likes of him again.”
However, the heart of it all was Duchamp. They owned more than 35 works by the artist, including many of his most important works through her career. Among these featured ready-mades and ready-mades, many of which were recreated and reprinted in the 1960s after many of the originals were destroyed: bring it back (1917/64), comb (1916/64), Apollinaire enamelled (1917/65), with subtle noises (1916/64), LHOOQ (1919/64) and Why don’t you sneeze? (1921/64).
In addition, they also owned many of Duchamp’s drawings and photographs, as well as a collection of 94 fragments of notes, drawings, and photographs relating to Duchamp’s magnus opus, Bride Stripped Naked By Her Bachelors, Even (1915-1923), which is permanently housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
“[Duchamp] On the phenomenon of art from the object to the idea ”Aaron Tell the Washington Post in 2011. “She redefined art for me. She took it out of the retina and put it in the brain.”
Another major Duchamp piece in Levine’s collection was Boîte-en-valise (1941), a briefcase containing small copies of the artist’s most famous works plus one unique work. This was Duchamp’s first purchase. They saw it at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery, and Aaron insisted that they buy it. That was almost twenty years ago. The obsession was riding the elevator. I’m on the 15th floor and there are about eighty floors, Aaron said in a 2018 joint interview with Evelyn C. Hankins, senior trustee of Hirschhorn.
“We’ve had this very special conversational dialogue about Duchamp for many years,” Kelly said. ARTnews. Once Duchamp found out, he stuck with it [the artist’s work] In a way that very few people have ever done. Aaron was doing loads of research and reading every publication, every book and every article he could get his hands on on the topic he was preoccupied with. In the latter part of his collegiate life, Duchamp became a the Great passion.”
On top of all Duchamp’s fever, they visited every important site related to Duchamp’s life in Europe, and reportedly affixed a facsimile signature of “R. Mutt”, which Duchamp had infamously spelled on an upturned urinal titled Fountain (1917). “We never go after something, except by Duchamp. Anything that belongs to Duchamp, Aaron has to buy because he’s crazy about it,” Hankins added in interview Barbara Hankins.
In 2018, Levines announced that she would donate more than 50 works, including more than 35 Duchamps, to Hirshhorn. The gift included iconic ready-made works and important drawings, as well as more than 150 books related to the artists and works by other artists with some connection to Duchamp, including Rachel Harrison, Irving Penn, Tristan Tzara, and others.
At the time, the museum called the Transformational Gift; Duchamp’s holdings are now on par with those at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was the subject of a donation Show which was shown at Hirshhorn in 2019.
Aaron M. Levine was born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York. His father ran an optical shop in Bushwick; Barbara’s father ran a pharmacy down the street. They met as teenagers after Aaron’s family moved into the same floor of the apartment building where Barbara’s family lived.
He attended George Washington University School of Law. A week after graduating from Skidmore College in upstate New York, Barbara moved to D.C. and the two married. In 1971, he formed his eponymous law firm, which focused on various forms of consumer rights litigation as they related to dangerous drugs, defective devices, and medical malpractice.
The Levines began collecting work over three decades ago, ranging from German Expressionism and Social Realism, purchasing works by Max Beckmann, Ralston Crawford and Philip Evergood. “I was fascinated by the 1930s, the uprising that broke out with the Nazis and how that turmoil was reflected in art,” Tell the The New York Times In 2019. Barbara preferred minimalism.
But as time went on, he soon warmed to more styles of artistic expression, and the two would combine fiercely.
“Conceptual art doesn’t give you the jump that visual art does, but it comes out better later,” Aaron Tell the Wall Street Journal in 2015. “It all comes from Duchamp. Nothing is from the artist’s hand, nothing is from the artist’s materials. But he took a hat rack from the hardware store, put it in the museum. And with that work, he brought down the curtain on the Renaissance.”
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