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 LEVON
WEST
1900 – 1968
Born in South Dakota,
Levon West was a descendant of the early American artist Benjamin West.
West was interested in art at an early age but, after winning a
scholarship to the University of Minnesota, he studied Business
Administration. After graduation he free lanced as an artist in
Minneapolis and became interested in etching through reading a series of
books about it. He decided to go East to continue his business studies
at Harvard but detoured to New York to meet an etcher about whom he had
read, Joseph Pennell. Pennell is credited with influencing and teaching
many well known 20th century etchers. West received enough
encouragement from Pennell to give up the idea of Harvard graduate
school and, instead, pursue etching as a career.
However, his business studies had shown him the importance of
advertising and he used this knowledge to good advantage in promoting
his art. While in New York studying at the Art Students’ League and with
Pennell, he formed an aviation corporation with friends. They serviced
planes at Roosevelt Field on Long Island. One day he noticed a different
type of plane and did sketches of it. It belonged to Charles Lindberg.
When West heard Lindberg flew the Spirit of St. Louis on a record
breaking trans-Atlantic flight, he hurriedly did an etching from his
sketches and took it to the New York Times. The paper asked how much he
wanted for it and he said, “I don’t care how much I get for it, but put
my name on it good and big at the bottom.” When the newspaper came out
with his etching on the front page demand for his work followed. He was
contacted by the Kennedy Galleries in New York the following day.
Because he was an excellent etcher, the virtues of his work continued to
be recognized by dealers and collectors. He became known for his
depictions of western ranch life and scenes from the American Northwest
in which he captured the motion of snow and dust storms and water
reflections. In 1932, He was Guest Artist for the state of Colorado.
Later in his life he became interested in photography, using the name
Ivan Dimitri in his photographic work.
West’s etchings are now in most museums in North America. But he was
honored in his own time. By age forty, his art was included in the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Havermeyer Collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He was
given the Theodore Roosevelt Roughrider Award by the state of North
Dakota in 1962.
Etching is “Noon”
8 ¼” x 10
Number 45 out of an edition of 100
signed in the margin
$525.00
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