Born in 1926 in Brooklyn, David Levine studied painting at Pratt Institute, at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and with Hans Hofmann. His work has been exhibited extensively in major galleries and museums throughout the world and several collections of his paintings and drawings have been published. His work has appeared in The New York Review since 1963.

John Updike, who was one of the artist's frequent subjects, paid tribute to Levine more than thirty years ago when he wrote:

Besides offering us the delight of recognition, his drawings comfort us, in an exacerbated and potentially desperate age, with the sense of a watching presence, an eye informed by an intelligence that has not panicked, a comic art ready to encapsulate the latest apparitions of publicity as well as those historical devils who haunt our unease. Levine is one of America's assets. In a confusing time, he bears witness. In a shoddy time, he does good work. Here he is.

Among other publications in which his work has appeared are Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Playboy, The New York Times, and Sports Illustrated. American Presidents, a book of Levine's caricatures of US presidents drawn over five decades, was published in 2008. He passed away December 29, 2009.