Helen Levitt (1913-2009)

!“Since I’m inarticulate,

I express myself with images.”

Self Portrait, 1963

Levitt was born August 31, 1913 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn ! In her senior year Levitt left high school to work for J. Florian Mitchell (commercial portrait photographer in the Bronx) ! Levitt meets photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1935. He becomes her guide and close friend. ! In 1936 Levitt purchases a secondhand Leica camera ! Levitt trains her eye by visiting museums & art galleries in New York City

Who is Helen Levitt?

Above: Bensonhurst 1910 !Left: Bensonhurst 1920

Life in the 1940s

1940s America was heavily

influenced by the events of World

War II (1939-1945). During this decade: !• Communities unified to

conserve and stretch resources

• Citizens learned to make do

with less • Rationed essential foods and

supplies (per government

order) so these items could be

reserved for military use

Inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity… the master of the instant, which questions and decides simultaneously.”

L E I C A !C A ME R A

The Leica Camera

Levitt worked with a hand-held Leica camera, outfitting it with a right-angle device, called a winkelsucher, a device that made it seem like she was looking down at her shoes when she was taking a photograph of something off to the side. That means that many of the people in Levitt’s pictures did not know they were being photographed.

The 1st commercially successful 35 mm camera!

New York, c. 1940Winkelsucher

Levitt’s work was 1st published in Fortune Magazine's special edition about New York City in July 1939.

A year later in 1940, Levitt’s

work was selected for

inclusion in the inaugural

exhibition of the Museum of

Modern Art’s photography department.

Rarely do any of the figures in Levitt's work (child or adult) engage directly with her, or strike a pose

Much more frequently figures seem to be occupied completely in their own worlds. . .

To support herself, Levitt worked as a film editor.

With great help from friends Janice Loeb (painter) & James Agee (film critic), Levitt

released In the Street in 1952. This 14-minute documentary focuses on Spanish

Harlem in the 1940s. The film brings Levitt’s work to light & life.

Short video clip from Helen Levitt’s film: In the Street

The rhythms of daily life . . .

Levitt received Guggenheim fellowships in 1959 & 1960 that allowed her to work in color

Levitt remained little known to the general public even as late as 1991, when the first

national retrospective of her work was

organized by the San Francisco Museum of

Modern Art.

Intensely private, Levitt shunned the limelight & seldom gave interviews.

H.L.

“I never had a ‘project.’ I would go out and shoot, follow my eyes... I tried to capture with my camera, for others to see.” -H.L.