BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY - To most of the world, David Levine was a brilliant artist best-known for his caricatures of public figures, published for more than years in the New York Review of Books. He definitely was that. But in Brooklyn Heights, Levine, 83, who died Tuesday after suffering from prostate cancer and macular degeneration, was also well-known as the leader of an informal “breakfast club” that met, and still meets, at Teresa’s Restaurant on Montague Street for about 25 years. He also played tennis at the Heights Casino, and his caricatures once hung on the walls of a now-closed restaurant on Montague Street. In addition to his caricatures, he loved to go down to Coney Island and paint watercolors of the beach, the amusement area and the older people who frequented the boardwalk. “He used to call them the ’schmatta ladies’ [women wearing old clothes, or rags, in Yiddish],” said his stepdaughter, Nancy Rommelmann, Tuesday.

Rommelmann, who first met Levine more than 30 years ago, said, “He was the funniest man I’ve ever met. He was a lifelong Brooklynite who grew up in Flatbush, lived in Park Slope, and then lived in Brooklyn Heights since the 1960s. He was so open, loving and funny.”

Among the many people who ate breakfast with him at Teresa’s were Peter Pane, Joe Merz, Kevin Carberry, Phil Mahnken, Richard Moses, Perry Cohen and Hank Blaustein, says Pane, a musician. “He was a stalwart of the community. For us and for the community, it’s a great loss,” he said.

Len Gelstein, a photographer and local resident who also took part in the breakfasts at Teresa’s, called Levine their “chairman".  Levine autographed Gelstein’s copy of one of his books, The Arts of David Levine, and it’s now one of Gelstein’s most cherished possessions.

Levine, whose father was a pattern maker in the garment district, was born on Dec. 20, 1926 — he died only a few days after his birthday. Even as a child, he attended art classes at Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. After graduating from Erasmus Hall High School in 1943, he enrolled at the Tyler School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, although his studies were interrupted by a two-year stint in the U.S. Army.

In his youth, according to an article by Peter Eikenberry published in the Eagle two years ago, Levine was a Communist and sold copies of the Daily Worker. Nevertheless, he told Eikenberry, he never actually paid dues or was issued a Communist Party card. “He was a Red Diaper Baby,” recalled Pane, using a term for the children of old-time Communists.

Later on, during the early 1950s, he and several artists unwittingly befriended a local man they knew as Emil Goldfus but who really was Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. After Abel was identified as a spy and FBI agents interviewed Levine, Levine expressed concern that his former Communist background might get him into trouble. The FBI agents merely laughed and said, “Don’t worry, we know all about you, we know you didn’t do anything,” Eikenberry wrote.

Levine started drawing for the New York Review of Books in 1963, and had a retrospective show, “American Presidents and Selected Paintings: 1966-2008” at the Forum Gallery in Manhattan. During his heyday, according to Eikenberry, the Review would deliver photos to the Heights Casino of whoever the magazine wanted drawn that week, plus a draft of the article his caricature was to accompany. A few days later, the Review picked up Levine’s sketches, also at the Casino.

Levine often satirized his subjects, and put his political opinions into his caricatures. His most frequent target was President Richard Nixon, whom he drew more than 60 times. One of his best-known caricatures was of President Lyndon Johnson —he took a well-known photo of Johnson showing his scar from a recent operation, but drew the scar in the shape of Vietnam. He also drew caricatures for other publications, notably for Esquire, for which he began freelancing in 1958.

He received many awards for his artwork, starting with the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 1955. His 2008 show at the Forum Gallery was one of 15 one-man exhibitions he had there over the years. In 1958, he and Aaron Shikler co-founded the Painting Group, a salon of painters who got together to draw models on a regular basis.

Several years ago, he was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a disease of the eyes, and eventually had to stop drawing new caricatures. He became blind in one eye, says Rommelmann, and suffered from prostate cancer for some time. He died in New York Presbyterian Hospital.

In addition to the Heights Casino, he was a member of the Century Association and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Survivors include his wife, Kathy Hayes Levine; his two children by an earlier marriage, Matthew, a writer, and Eve, a naturalist; his two stepchildren, Christopher and Nancy Rommelmann; and two grandchildren. A memorial service will be planned for the future, perhaps at the Heights Casino, says Ms. Rommelmann.

By Raanan Geberer, Brooklyn Daily Eagle