Attorney General: Edward H. Levi
Edward Hirsch Levi was born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 26, 1911. He received his Bachelor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago in 1932 and his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the same institution in 1935. He went on to receive his Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D.) degree in 1938 from Yale University, where he had been a Sterling Fellow in 1935 and 1936. Levi was named assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago in 1936, the same year he was admitted to the Illinois bar. From 1940 to 1945, he took a leave of absence from the University to be First Assistant to the Attorney General, serving in the Antitrust Division as head of its Consent Decree Division. In 1943, he served as the First Assistant in the Justice Department’s War Division. He was also chairman of the Interdepartmental Committee on Monopolies and Cartels in 1944. He returned to the University of Chicago Law School in 1945 as a professor, was named dean of the law school in 1950, provost of the University in 1962, and appointed its president in 1968. During those years, Levi also served as chief counsel to the Subcommittee on Monopoly Power of the House Judiciary Committee in 1950, as a member of the White House Central Group on Domestic Affairs in 1964, and as a member of the White House Task Force on Education in 1966 and 1967. In addition, he was a member of the President’s Task Force on Priorities in Higher Education in 1969 and 1970. He was also a member of the National Commission on Productivity and the National Council on the Humanities.
On February 6, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford appointed Levi as Attorney General of the United States. He returned to teaching at the University of Chicago Law School upon resigning that office on January 20, 1977. Levi died in Chicago, Illinois, on March 7, 2000.
George Augusta was born in 1922 in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied painting in Florence, Italy, while serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. He returned to Boston and continued his studies under Ernest Lee Major, an original member of the Boston School of painting. A member of the Guild of Boston Artists, he enjoyed a successful six-decade career as a portrait and landscape painter. Augusta painted the portraits of many prominent Americans, including Chief Justice Warren Burger and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. It is unknown when this painting of Attorney General Levi was completed. Augusta died in 2012.