Josef Levi began his artistic career in the 1960s and early '70s, producing highly abstract and very modernist pieces: employing exotic materials such as light fixtures and metallic parts. By 1975, Levi had transitioned to painting and drawing still lifes. At first these were, traditionally, of mundane subjects. Later, he would depict images from art history, including figures originally created by the Old Masters. Around 1980, he made another important shift, this time toward creating highly precise, though subtly altered reproductions of pairs of female faces which were originally produced by other artists. Levi's works of art in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Albright-Knox Museum, among many others. Levi's art has been featured on the cover of Harper's Magazine twice, once in June 1987, and once in May 1997.