Litvinovsky painted portraits throughout his life. At first, he specialized in graphic drawings, later moving on to painting Jewish cultural figures. Public figures became his focus from the 1930s onwards. These portraits were mostly created based on photographs at the request of individuals or official institutions and were often used as gifts to important guests. This is how different versions of his portraits of prime ministers, presidents and famous people from Israel and around world came to be.
While these portraits were an important source of income for Litvinovsky and even established him in the eyes of the Israeli public as the national portrait painter, the artist distanced himself from them. However, even in such portraiture he managed to find space for the artistic exploration he was engaged in. His stylistic development is evident in the differences between the early portraits, committed as they are to the principles of the academic style of painting, versus the later, liberated portraits, in which the influence of Paul Cézanne and Cubism is obvious. Over the sketch of the subject's face with just a few lines on the canvas Litvinovsky works with colour and shape, breaking them down and rebuilding them in spots, adding expressionistic touches.
