Matvey Levenstein (born 1960) is a Russian-American painter best known for his oil on copper, wood, and linen; and sumi ink on paper depictions of landscapes and interior/still lifes that explore themes of history and representation.

[1] Invoking the intersection at which avant-garde cinema meets the tradition of European painting, Levenstein's work explores and embodies the object-image relationship.

[3] Levenstein is represented by Kasmin Gallery (New York)[4] and Galleria Lorcan O'Neill (Rome, Italy).

Invoking the intersection at which avant-garde cinema meets the tradition of European painting, Levenstein's work explores and embodies the object-image relationship.

[7] Reviewing his 2019 solo exhibition at Kasmin Gallery, Peter Schjeldahl wrote in The New Yorker, "Can loveliness shock?

"[18] Robert Becker, writing for The New Criterion, remarked "There's an all-over radiance coming from somewhere beneath the surfaces of Levenstein's paintings, dispersing light evenly like a fine mist on a still morning.

[19] In 1995 he presented a group of work at Jack Tilton Gallery of paintings and drawings based on black and white photographs of his family, Russian Jews, and bourgeois interiors.

Neither authentic nor kitsch but rooted in the fundamentals of painting "by moving backward you in fact can step ahead."