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TRANSCRIPT
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.