The Art of His Life

Muralist Sol Levenson has just painted a woman bending over to pick apples. One minute she is in the foreground and the next, her apple-picking days are over. Levenson decides to white her out of the picture. "She was getting all the attention. In a mural, there must be interest all over," he explains. "Besides, I'm so happy making a mistake. Here's a chance to make it better. When you get so old that you don't know you're making mistakes, then it's time to worry."

Levenson, 95, has no time to worry. He is busy with his current project, a three-panel portrayal of the Civil War at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in Lebanon, N.H., where since 1990 he has painted 17 historical murals. (Among his other subjects: the Shaker sect, Native Americans and a New England fair.) He is also writing a book on the history of drawing, teaching female inmates at a Vermont state prison how to make a landscape mural and starting sketches for a portrait commission. Oh, and this fall he's off on a Fulbright fellowship to Colombia for two months, where he will teach painting in Spanish, a language he taught himself at 64. He has won two other Fulbrights to Latin America in the past decade.

From his home in nearby White River Junction, Vt., Levenson drives to Dartmouth-Hitchcock in his 1988 stick-shift Chevrolet Nova. He does all his murals--for which he charges only the cost of materials--in the oncology section because his mother and the first of his three wives died of cancer. "The patients' conversations feed me--they keep me alert," says Levenson, who places an empty chair next to his easel to invite kibitzing while he works.

The stimulation is mutual. "Sol is nothing short of spectacular," says Dr. Eugen Hug, chief of radiation oncology at the cancer center. "His sheer presence and energy are inspiring to everyone. When you see someone his age having this tremendous mental agility and creativity, he becomes a role model, whether he wants to or not." Radiation oncology nurse Anita Concilio believes that Levenson "reminds patients that life goes on, even with a cancer diagnosis. That he is working into his mid-90s and has so much to offer gives us all hope."

One patient who was particularly inspired by Levenson was Janice Munro, a former nurse who had bilateral breast cancer. When Munro arrived for her first radiation session four years ago, she spotted Levenson in the corner, painting. "There was so much energy and life in those murals, and that's what I wanted back in my life," she recalls. "When I looked at his murals, I forgot about the cancer and felt healthy. He lives life to its fullest every single day, and I realized that's what I had to do too." Today Munro, 62, acts as Levenson's assistant, handing him paints, brushes and paper from a converted hospital cart and helping to paint backgrounds.