He was born in Kharkow, Ukraine, in 1916. Due to the Russian Revolution, in 1924 his family immigrated to France. He received a Baccalauréat degree from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris in 1936 and a P.C.B. (pre-med) at the Université de Paris in 1938. After completing his first year at the Ecole de Médecine, his studies were interrupted by World War II.

After serving in the French army and the American army (OSS), he resumed his studies in the United States. He received a M.A. in Art History from Boston University in 1946 and a Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard University in 1952. Dr. Levitine taught at Boston University from 1948 to 1964 and also served on the faculty of the Harvard Extension Program from 1957 to 1964.

In 1964, Dr. Levitine joined the University of Maryland as a full professor and Head of the Art Department, a department of three or four which grew to thirty seven faculty members during his tenure. Under Dr. Levitine's leadership, the University of Maryland's art history and art programs gained national recognition.

Retiring as Head of the department in 1978 to devote time to research and teaching, he taught until being named Professor Emeritus and Director of Academic Program Development with European Academic Institutions by the university in 1986.

Dr. Levitine's publications include numerous articles on Goya, emblems, and French art from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. He gained a reputation as an authority on eighteenth-century French art. In 1987 he organized and edited the papers of a monumental symposium "Culture and Revolution: Cultural Ramifications of the French Revolution."

Emblematic devices and their significance were a major area of research for Dr. Levitine, and in 1987 the University sponsored a symposium, chaired by Marie Spiro and Doug Farquhar and entitled "The Protean Life of Emblems after the Sixteenth Century," in his honor. Papers from this symposium appeared in an issue of Emblematica dedicated to him.

At the time of his death in 1989, the University of Maryland established the George Levitine Art History Endowment to support research and study by faculty and students. The keynote speech at the annual Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art has also been named in his honor.

Mrs. Levitine was raised in France and came to the United States during World War II. She attended Boston University College of Liberal Arts and Graduate School, earning a master’s degree in romance languages and literature.

She taught French at Lesley College in Cambridge, MA, and at Trinity College in Washington, DC, where she chaired the French Department from 1970 to 1984.

Her field of specialization focused on French literature of the nineteenth century and the relationship between French literature and French art. She translated a version of Apollinaire (University of Alabama Press, 1975) and also authored several articles on Baudelaire.

She retired and was named Professor Emerita in 1998.

Eda and George Levitine have three daughters - Elizabeth, Denise, and Annette - and three grandchildren - Christopher, Jacqueline, and Teddy.

Selected publications:

Books
The Sculpture of Falconet (Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1972)
The Dawn of Bohemianism: The Barbu Rebellion and Primitivism in

Neo-Classical France (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,

1978)
Girodet-Trioson: An Iconographical Study (New York: Garland, 1978)

Articles
"The Influence of Lavater and Girodet’s Expression des Sentiments de l’Ame." The

Art Bulletin, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Mar. 1954), pp. 33-44.
"Some Emblematic Sources of Goya." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld

Institutes, Vol. 22, Nos. 1-2 (1959), pp. 106-31.
"Vernet Tied to a Mast in a Storm: The Evolution of an Episode of Art Historical

Romantic Folklore." The Art Bulletin, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Jun. 1967), pp.

93-100.
"Les Origines du mythe de l’artiste bohème en France: Lantara." Gazette des

Beaux-Arts, ser. 6, Vol. 86 (Sep. 1975), pp. 49-60.
"Goya, les emblèmes et la revanche de L’âne portant des reliques." Gazette des

Beaux-Arts, ser. 6, Vol. 93 (Apr. 1979), pp.173-78.
"Some Observations on the Déluge of Girodet: Ambiguity and Invention." Ars Auro

Prior: studia Ioanni Bialostocki sexagenario dicata, ed. Juliusz A.

Chroscicki (Warsaw: Polish Academy of Science, 1982), pp. 619-23.
"A Newly Discovered Project of Girodet: Originality, Ossian, and England." Paris:

Center of Artistic Enlightenment, Vol. 4 of Papers in Art History from the

Pennsylvania State University, (University Park: Pennsylvania State University,

1988), pp. 160-66.