Born in Bonn, Germany, in 1881, Alexander Oscar Levy emigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio three years later. He began his formal art education at the tender age of twelve, studying with Frank Duveneck at the Cincinnati Art Academy (1894-1900) and later at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art under William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri and Ossip Linde. By 1909, he had relocated to Buffalo where he spent the balance of his life as a painter, illustrator, printmaker and designer. Levy participated in exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo and with the Society of Independent Artists and Buffalo Society of Artists. His work is included in numerous major institutional collections including the Cincinnati Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago and Detroit Institute of Art.  A major retrospective of Levy's work was mounted at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo in 2014-15.

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     Levy’s proficiency as a draftsman is evident in this poignant portrayal of Depression-era African-Americans at worship. When it was exhibited at the Buffalo Society of Artists Annual Exhibition in 1937, Negro Spiritual won both the jury award and the prize for the exhibition's most popular work. Using bold, broad brushstrokes reminiscent of the technique of his mentors, the artist has deftly captured the desperation as well as the hope and faith of his subjects, representing, in all probability, three generations of a single family. Each figure independently embodies a complex range of emotions. Superbly balanced and skillfully illuminated, the composition focuses on the elderly woman in the foreground, a figure whose strength and dignity seems sufficient for the entire family.