"What happens when you can't be a cynic any more? What do you do?" Increasingly this has been the question asked by knife-faced Jack Levine, 41, Boston slum-born painter whose big reputation is based on such satire-veined canvases as Welcome Home, Gangster Funeral, Election Night (TIME, May 20, 1946 et seq.). His answer, Medicine Show, more than a year in the painting, is on display this week at Manhattan's Alan Gallery. It is more the work of a reformer than that of a cynic, attacking the world of ballyhoo which promotes "something people don't want but buy on installments."
Ex-Cynic Levine says...