The Streets of New York
The Streets of New York
October 11, 2018
Helen Levitt New York, 1973 Dye-Transfer Print Film Documents LLC © Film Documents LLC / Courtesy Gallery Thomas Zander, Cologne
Leica photographer Helen Levitt (1913–2009) ranks among the most important representatives of street photography. From the 1930s onwards, she captured the inhabitants of New York’s working class neighbourhoods, such as Lower East Side, Harlem and the Bronx – turning fleeting moments of everyday life into dynamic compositions: children at play, conversing couples, passers-by going about their daily lives. Characterised by the photographer’s unsentimental approach and keen eye for surreal details, Levitt’s images are humorous visual spectacles that transcend social-documentary clichés.
Vienna’s Albertina Museum now presents some 130 of the artist’s iconic works in a comprehensive retrospective exhibition. The selection ranges from Levitt’s early, surrealism-inspired images of chalk drawings, to photographs shot in Mexico in 1941, all the way to her surreptitious portraits of New York subway passengers – a project Walker Evans suggested to her in 1938.
A comprehensive portfolio of Helen Levitt’s work can be found in the Leica Classics section of LFI 2/2018.
For further information visit Albertina
Helen Levitt New York, 1973 Dye-Transfer Print Film Documents LLC © Film Documents LLC / Courtesy Gallery Thomas Zander, Cologne
Helen Levitt New York, 1980 Dye-transfer print Private collection © Film Documents LLC / Courtesy of the Thomas Zander Gallery, Cologne