New York

Helen Levitt

New York © Estate of Helen Levitt. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied without prior written consent © COLECCIONES Fundación MAPFRE

Helen Lewitt
New York, ca. 1940
© Estate of Helen Levitt. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied without prior written consent, 2021
© Fundación MAPFRE COLLECTIONS

Author

Helen Levitt

Born:
New York, 1913

Died:
New York, 2009

Entry date: 2008

Origin: Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Technique

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

Dimensions of printed area: 28,5 x 18,8 cm (11 1/4 x 7 3/8 in.)
Paper size: 35,6 x 27,9 cm (14 x 11 in.)

Inventory

FM000601

Subject / Document

Later copy

Description

Influenced by the work of Cartier-Bresson, she bought herself a Leica which became her greatest ally. Unlike modern photographers and documentary photographers Levitt’s images always attempt to bear witness to reality. Her work reflects what life was like on the streets as a kind of modern meeting place. At a time where no were no television sets (especially in the houses of the poorest in society) and no air conditioning the streets become a communal living room. In the foreword to his book A Way Of Seeing, James Agee defines her work as «lyrical photography». Levitt’s streets and children remind us of the horizon. This book became instrumental in her career: finished in 1946, it was published almost twenty years later in 1965 and is a living and paradigmatic testimony to her photography.

Titled, dated and signed in pencil on the recto. Illus: Helen Levitt, p. 57; Crosstown, cover and p.163

Fundacion MAPFRE has 12 gelatin silver prints of the artists. All these works have been reproduced in extremely influential photography books: A way of Seeing (1965), Helen Levitt (2008) —with a foreword by Walker Evans— and Crosstown (2001).

Levitt, Helen. Crosstown. New York: PowerHouse Books, 2001
Levitt, Helen. Here and There. Nueva York: PowerHouse Books, 2003
Levitt, Helen, James Agee. A Way of Seeing. Nueva York: Horizon Press, 1981 (1ª ed. 1965)
Levitt, Helen, James Oles. Helen Levitt: Mexico City. Nueva York: Center for Documentary Studies con W.W. Norton & Co, 1997 (1ª ed. 1941)
Phillips, Sandra S., Maria Morris Hambourg, Helen Levitt. Helen Levitt. San Francisco, California: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1991

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