Helen Levitt – The Eye Of The Street
The 1913 Brooklyn born photographer Helen Levitt (* 1913 – † 2009) would turn 101 years these days.
Helen Levitt, New York, 1940
Helen Levitt was an American photographer and filmmaker. She was one of the most important representatives of the New York Street Photography. Her favorite sujet were children playing in the street, and everyday life in the streets mostly of the urban poor residents of the City.
Her pictures inspired generations of photographers and curators. In 1931 she started working as a portrait photographer in Brooklyn due what she met Henry Cartier-Bresson and got inspired to buy her first Leica Camera to capture the street-life of her hometown. In 1943 she had her first own exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
She also gained reputation as a filmmaker. Her movie „The quiet one“ was nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar in 1948. Helen Levitt’s films are regarded as vanguards of the independent low-budget film genre.
Retrospectives of her work have been held at several museums including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, International Center for Photography and the Centre National la Photography in Paris.
Recently Helen Levitt lived in New York, where she died in 2009 at the age of 95 years at her home in Greenwich Village.
Helen Levitt, New York, 1988
Helen Levitt, New York 1972
Helen Levitt, New York, 1978
More
Watch the Movie “The Quiet One”
Exhibition
Helen Levitt “In the Street”
Jepson Center, April 25-September 21 2014
Website: Telfair Museum, Georgia
