The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
Samuel Levitt (July 12, 1907-????) came to the Pittsburgh area from Latvia with his family around 1923. To help support his family, he became a clerk at a local wholesaling house while also taking classes at the Franklin Night School, the Fifth Avenue Night School, and the Neighborhood Art School at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House. He later studied under painter Samuel Rosenberg and sculptor Frank Vittor at the Isaac Seder Educational Center of the Young Men’s and Women’s Hebrew Association. He was hospitalized for nearly five months in the mid-1920s due to exhaustion.
Levitt began sculpting by copying existing pieces, including Antoine-Louis Barye’s “Lion Crushing a Serpent” and Jean Antoine Houdon’s bust of George Washington. He was selected in 1929 to produce a bust of Judge Josiah Cohen for the Kaufmann Memorial Auditorium at the YM&WHA. The following year, Levitt produced a statue of Rabbi Yehudah Loeb, creator of the Golem, in association with a theatrical production of “The Golem” by the Y Playhouse.