Dublin born Les Levine has always been an artist ahead of his time

From early use of video to eye-catching billboard campaigns, Les Levine was very much an artist ahead of his time, writes Richard Fitzpatrick

LES LEVINE was eight years old when he first met Jack B Yeats. It was at the artist’s studio in 1943, which was above a shop on South Anne St, just off Grafton St in Dublin. Levine’s uncle, Victor Waddington, who was Yeats’s art dealer, took him there. It was a Saturday morning. Levine, who went on to become one of the first significant artists to use video, says it exposed a whole new world to him.

“I had never come in contact with any kind of an artist before I met him. I can remember the painting he was painting. It was a big painting that took up one wall and it was a painting of the sea. There were three horses coming out of the sea. I had no idea of what art was or who he was. I don’t think he was as well known then as he is now. He wasn’t much of a talker; he was a quiet man.