In Memoriam — Marc Levenson – January 26, 1954 – March 21, 2025
By Jo Anne Murray and Paul Robinson….
Many of us here were friends with Marc for decades, sharing his love of Citroën cars and the finer things in life. We often spend time with people in this group in brief spurts, so we don’t get to know all there is to know about our fellow Citroënists.
Marc was a loving husband to Jo Anne Murray, and a “Mr. Mom” of a father to their son Michael. He was an accomplished artist, wine connoisseur, Chef, gardener and host.
Making a career in Graphic Design he designed numerous government books and pamphlets and designed marketing presentations and award submissions for Murray & Associates, Jo Anne’s architecture firm. A memorable collaboration with Jo Anne was an award-winning elementary school design. Marc proposed using ceramic tiles where the tiles depicted various dinosaurs, placed at various spots around the school so students could simply say “meet me at T-Rex”. Marc designed the images and worked to have them printed on tiles like puzzle pieces, a very challenging project.
Marc met Jo Anne at the University of Maryland. He was a Fine Arts major working in the Architecture Library photographing pictures of buildings in old French books. Jo, with 12 years of French language studies, was asked to translate the names of the buildings from 17th century French so the slides could be properly labeled. That was their first of many collaborations.
Marc was a Francophile and discovered Citroëns in New York City with his brother. His brother had two Cits and Marc learned to drive in a DS Pallas purchased from John Agerbeek. Despite his love of Cits his first car was a Renault R16, but that car was damaged by a Citroën DS, being used as a florist’s truck, backing into it. He was paid $600 for the R16 and immediately went up to Red Dellinger’s in Pennsylvania and bought a 1970 D-Special. Jo and Marc eloped in that car, and named the car ‘Sacre Bleu’.
When Citroën departed the US in 1974 Marc became active with other local Citroën owners where he met Ariel Robinson who had started a Citroën Club in the DC area. He was able to maintain the car with help from Ariel, Jay Brosius and in later years Ariel’s sons helped as well as Rich Hollabaugh. Marc took care of his car and Jo became a “Certified Citroen Nurse”, reading the Chilton repair manuals to package each part he removed in labeled plastic bags so they could put the car back together again. The D-Special was Marc’s pride and joy, he drove it as a daily driver as much as possible and took great pleasure in its restoration over the past several years.
Marc and family began attending the annual Citroën Rendezvous in 1979, making many friends over the years. Marc became the volunteer art director for Citroen Quarterly magazine, whose founder, Michael Cox, organized the Rendezvous for more than twenty years. He assisted in publicity design for the International Citroën Car Club Rendezvous hosted by Michael Cox in 2002 at Amherst College. Marc designed many tee shirts still on sale at Rendezvous today.
That’s the Citroën side of Marc, but he did much more of course. In 1984 Marc founded a wine club, The Olde Claret Club, designing and authoring a newsletter. He was “pen pals” with many of the best chateaux in France before the internet made such international correspondence trivial. His cellar is filled with exquisite vintage wines, the oldest he drank dated from 1900, 1928 and 1942. He saved all the labels of wines he drank and kept an album of the most important labels as well as featuring the most important wine bottles, with labels intact, on a shelf in his studio. He called them his ‘dead soldiers’. Marc became friends with Alexis Lichine who saved the caves in Bordeaux from the Nazis. He was also friends with Francois Faiveley in Burgundy, owner of one of the oldest vineyards in Burgundy.
As is natural, one cannot truly enjoy great wine without great food, so Marc taught himself the fine art of cooking, then attended L’Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda, studying under the world-renowned Watergate Hotel chef, Jean Louis Palladin. During that time Marc and Jean Louis would spend break time in Marc’s Citroën, likely discussing Jean Louis’ cookbook he was writing at the time. Marc’s food was, according to Jo Anne, marvelously tasty, and as beautiful as his artwork, but Marc always said “the first rule of cooking is to not poison the guests”, something I heard from him more than once. Jean Louis had a great mane of long, wild hair. But he developed cancer and the treatment took his hair. So Marc sent him a hat painted and in the shape of a Citroën 2CV which Jean Louis proudly wore until his death. Over the course of their partnership Marc and Jo hosted more than 500 seven-course dinner parties, all featuring his wine collection.
Marc traveled extensively and was an adept scuba diver and snorkeler. He and Jo honeymooned in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and later traveled to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and St. Barts, French Virgin Islands. He traveled extensively throughout France, concentrating on the wine regions, and had visited all the 3-star Michelin restaurants, especially those “worth a side trip”. On various trips he traveled to London, Basel, Geneva, Lake Como, Milan, Rome, Parma, Venice, Vienna, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Budapest, and Prague. He had travelled to 24 US States.
Marc restored violins and self-published a book called “Kitchen Table Violin”, which was sold extensively at trade shows. He taught himself to play the violin. At a young age his son, Michael, picked up the violin and played it like a cello. For a 4th grade science project Marc helped Michael make a cello out of a wooden wine case. Ever the “Mr. Mom”, Marc religiously took his son to cello lessons. Michael went on to become first cellist in the Rockville Youth Orchestra, played in the Walt Whitman HS Orchestra, and in the Boston College Orchestra. Marc then taught himself to play the Strat-o-caster electric guitar.
Marc was an avid observer of nature. He had a photographic mind, and knew the names and sounds of most birds, butterflies, and animals. He was an avid walker and biker on the bike path along the C&O canal. He had a 350-plus collection of stuffed animals that he insisted had to be anatomically correct. Every animal has a name. While Marc and Jo are artists/architects, Marc’s mother was a chemist at NIH. so Michael got good genes on both sides and it wasn’t surprising that his son became a veterinarian.
Marc belonged to the National Capital Orchid Society. His collection has included up to 125 plants, all beautiful, with some night fragrant and others day fragrant. He won over a hundred awards. Just last week he won the Abbott award for Best in Show for a second time for a very rare Cymbidium. This orchid has been donated to the Smithsonian Botanical Garden, where it will live in perpetuity with a plaque in his name.
When Marc retired, he started restoring his early oil paintings, because the cheap paint purchased when he was a student was beginning to fade. You will see two dates on some of his paintings. He also cast silver sculpture and made zinc plate engravings. Marc considered himself a “Symbolist” artist – every motif in his paintings has a meaning, and the motifs are often repeated.
I must also mention that Marc had a pet tortoise, aged 25, that Marc cared for lovingly over many years.
Everything that Marc touched became art. He will be greatly missed.
