Elusive Interplay

Blanche Krim Levie

Levie uses the medium of color serigraphy (screen printing) to create this Abstract Expressionist image. The title speaks to the subject as shapes and colors move throughout the composition in an "elusive interplay" as both a challenge and reward for the viewer willing to take the time to follow the paths.

Blanche Sylvia Krim Levie (neé Krim) was born in Mt. Vernon, New York on 18 August 1909 to Abraham J. and Ida Goldberg Krim. Her family was living in New York City in 1925 and her obituary states that she studied at Juilliard in New York and the Corcoran Museum School in Washington, D.C.

Krim married attorney Howard S. Levie in 1934. He joined the U.S. Army in 1942 and, the following year, she joined the Women's Army Corps (WAC ). Blanche served between 21 August 1943 and 23 November 1945 as a sergeant, drawing maps for air-sea rescue and posters for the sale of war bonds. Howard Levie rose from Private to Colonel and Blanche traveled the world according to his military assignments. They lived in Saint Louis between 1963 and 1977 where he taught at St. Louis University School of Law. Professor Levie, one of the nation's foremost legal experts on the law of war, was the key draftsman of the Korean War Armistice Agreement. Upon his retirement from St. Louis University, they moved to Newport, Rhode Island.

So little can be traced of Blanche K. Levie's artistic life but she did exhibit in the "Fifteenth Annual Drawing and Print Exhibition" of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art from April through May 1951. Her color serigraph "Elusive Interplay" was included in this exhibition as well as the "Color in Prints" exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art, circa 1952.

In their 90s, Blanche and Howard worked on their autobiography, "Memories of an Ordinary Couple."

Blanche Sylvia Krim Levie died in Newport, Rhode Island on 6 February 2002.