Helen Levitt
1913–2009 · United States
The everyday theatre of the street.
The story
Levitt photographed mainly the streets of New York, where children’s gestures and games form an everyday theatre. Her work combines documentary attention with a feeling for strange situations, without systematically seeking a spectacular event. She also explored cinema and colour. Her images offer a way of exploring the street as a shared space: bodies, thresholds and glances form relationships that framing makes briefly perceptible.
Understanding the work
Observe unfinished gestures and relationships between several people. The subject is not always a central individual; it may lie in a delicate circulation between bodies.
Key works and series
New York streets; children and chalk drawings; colour photographs.
Sources & further exploration
Works in collections.
8 recordsPhotographs to explore on museum and library websites, with titles, dates and processes. Each link opens the collection record and its image where one is available.
- MoMA · 1971-74
Projects: Helen Levitt in Color
Two sets of 40 35mm color slides shown in continuous projection, digital version created in 2012
