In an art review in the Times of Trenton, Janet Purcell said, “If you’re looking for works of art that are simply beautiful, you need look no further than Marge Levine’s pastels. She captures the mood and atmosphere like none other.” That has always been my goal as an artist. Another reviewer commented, “Her work is a paradox, intricately real yet softly impressionistic.” The paradox of my work derives from my belief that while it is important to capture precisely the details of what I observe in nature, my primary effort is to capture the way what I am observing makes me feel – the atmosphere more than the detail, although they should not be incompatible. One of the first influences on my work in plein air was the art of J. M. W. Turner whose work I most fully encountered while living in Cambridge, England for a year. Not that I try to capture the epic breadth of his work, but that I felt how powerfully he could represent the way a landscape felt and the way it moved him and find in it magical and lovely things that the ordinary eye would miss. As I work in nature, I somehow find in the most ordinary details of a landscape things beautiful and remarkable, and I try to represent the experience of that discovery in different ways in each of my paintings. My ability to find patterns and designs in nature and the beautiful in the ordinary is partly the result of my early training as a textile designer. To my eye, nature itself can be a gorgeous, intricate and moving design.

Marge’s plein air paintings have been accepted into most national pastel shows, and she has won awards in many of them.

Education:
Associate in Applied Science Degree from the Fashion Institute of Design and      Technology, 1952.
Workshops with Richard McKinley, Albert Handell, Elizabeth Mowry, Duane      Wakeham, Alan Flattmann, Skip Whitcomb, Stan Sperlak, Clark Mitchell,      and Moses Sawyer.

Galleries:
The Artful Deposit, Bordentown, N.J.
The James Yarosh Gallery, Holmdel, N.J.
Fredericks Gallery, Spring Lake, N.J.
Jacklyn Kling Gallery, Montclair, N.J.
Images Gallery, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
Jacqueline Wilentz Comprehensive Breast Center at Monmouth Medical      Center

Awards:
2011- Spring Lake, N.J. Garden Tour and Paint Out, 3rd Prize
2010 - Great Lakes Pastel Society, Silver Medal Award
2010 - Bayonet Farm Arts and Music Festival, Paint Out, 1st Prize, Plein Air
2008 - Northwest Pastel Society 16th Open International Exhibition, Dakota Art      Award
2008 - Belmar Arts Council, Annual Show, Honorable Mention, “Best in      Category”
2008 - Allenhurst, N.J. Garden Tour Paint Out, 1st Prize
2008 - Art Society of Monmouth County, 3rd Prize
2006 - International Association of Pastel Painters Societies, 1st Scholarship      Award
2006 - American Impressionist Society, Honorable Mention
2005 - Pastel Society of America 33rd Annual Exhibition, The Louisa Melrose      Gallery Award
2005 – National Northeast Pastel Society, “Best of Genre”
2005 - Pastel Society of the West Coast, Honorable Mention
1990 – Print Council of New Jersey, Honorable Mention
1988 - The Artists League of Central New Jersey, 11th Annual Exhibition,      Award of Excellence

Associations:
Pastel Society of America (Signature member)
Degas Pastel Society (Signature member)
Plein Air Painters of the Jersey Coast (Signature member)
Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod (Signature member)
Pastel Painters of Maine (Signature member)
Salmagundi Art Club (Juried member)
Pastel Society of New Jersey
New Jersey Chapter, The American Artists Professional League

Paint Outs:
2011 – Plein Air Painters of the Jersey Coast, Monday paint outs
2011 - Atlantic Highlands, Wednesday Morning paint outs
2011 – Bayonet Farm Arts and Music Festival
2011 – Spring Lake Garden Tour Paint Out
2010 – 2nd Annual Hammonton Paint Out (Noyes Museum)
2010 - Plein Air Painters of the Jersey Coast, Monday paint outs
2009 – Rumson Garden Tour Paint Out
2009 – Plein Air Painters of the Jersey Coast, Monday paint outs
2008 – Allenhurst Paint Out
2008 – Plein Air Painters of the Jersey Coast, Monday paint outs
2008 – Bayonet Farm Arts and Music Festival
2006 – Princeton Paint Out
2006 – Plein Air Painters of the Jersey Coast, Monday paint outs
2003 – Princeton Paint Out

Workshops /Demos:
Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, Ca. “Landscape Painting in Pastels”
Middletown Arts Center, Middletown, N.J. “Painting With Pastels”
Leonardo Grade School, Leonardo, N.J. “Painting with Pastels”
Guild of Creative Art, Shrewsbury, N.J. “Landscape Painting with Pastels”
Atlantic Artisans, Atlantic Highlands, N.J. “Landscape Painting with Pastels”
Art Society of Monmouth County,. “Painting with Pastels”

Publications:
2006 - “Structuring the Landscape”American Artist Magazine, April, 2006
2004 - International Artist Magazine, December/January
2004 - International Artist Magazine publication, “How Did You Paint That? 100      Ways To Paint The Landscape”
1995 - Rutgers University Press, “Life Birds”
1992 - Macmillan Press, “The Glass Menorah”