Rudolf Levy was a German painter. After training as a cabinetmaker, he studied at the Karlsruhe Academy from 1895. In 1899 he continued his studies at the Munich Academy, among others with H. von Zügel. In 1903 he went to Paris, where he became the center of the German artists' colony. In 1905 he was able to exhibit at the Autumn Salon, and in 1907 he worked in Matisse's studio.

After WW I he joined the artists' association 'Das junge Rheinland' in Düsseldorf and exhibited in A. Flechtheim's gallery, among others. He moved to Berlin, where he became chairman of the Berlin Secession in 1928. He evaded the National Socialists as early as 1933 by emigrating and, after changing stations, settled in Florence in 1940. There he was seized in 1944 and died on the train to Auschwitz.

Mus .: Berlin (Nat.-Gal.), Frankfurt (Städel), Hamburg (Kunsthalle), Hannover (Sprengel-Mus.), Cologne (Mus. Ludwig), Munich (Lenbachhaus), Rome (Gall. Nazionale), Stuttgart (Staatsgal.), Tel Aviv a. others. Lit .: Thieme-Becker, Vollmer a. others.

Rudolf Levy studied in Munich and was a master student of Matisse in Paris. He returned to Germany in 1919 and moved in the circle around the gallery owner Alfred Flechtheim. In 1928 he became a member of the board and jury of the Berlin Secession and in 1929 founded a private painting school on Kurfürstendamm, probably based on the Matisse student studio.

From 1933 Levy experienced an odyssey as an emigrant from Italy, Spain via New York to Croatia and finally to Ischia, where he became friends with Werner Gilles, Max Peiffer Watenphul and Eduard Bargheer. In 1943 he was lured into a trap by SS men in Florence and died in 1944 on a train carrying Jewish prisoners to Auschwitz. His works were confiscated from German museums by the National Socialists during the "Degenerate Art" campaign in 1937 and have so far been lost or destroyed.

Rudolf Levy was born in Pomerania in 1875. He studied at the Danskt and Karlsruhe high schools in Germany before enrolling at carpentry school. Pursuing his dream to become an artist he moved to Munich to attend the School of Fine Arts. In 1903, Lévy arrived in Paris with Austrian artist Walter Bondy and studied in Henri Matisse's studio. He often went back to Germany where he befriended the gallery owner Alfred Fleichtheim who organised many exhibitions in Berlin and Düsseldorf dedicated to the "Dômiers," Le Dôme café's regulars such as Lévy. When World War I broke out, Lévy was in Germany and was enlisted in the army. After the war, he returned to Paris and became head of the studio at the Académie Matisse. He traveled frequently to North Africa and the United States, where he met Pascin, Max Ernst, and Oskar Kokoschka. When the Nazis came to power, he took refuge in Majorca, Spain, and later in the United States. In 1943, Lévy was in Florence planning his escape to the United States before being arrested by SS soldiers. In April 1944, he was killed in Auschwitz and his paintings and writings were destroyed.