Hailing from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Helen Levitt (1913–2009) was a New York original. The daughter of Russian Jewish émigrés, Levitt rose to become one the greatest street photographers of the twentieth century.
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“In a genre dominated by men at the time, Levitt created an outstanding body of work that spans more than six decades and encompasses images, films and books,” says Anna Dannemann, Senior Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery, who collaborated with curator Walter Moser and the Albertina Museum in Vienna, on the new exhibition, Helen Levitt: In the Street.
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The exhibition, along with the new book Helen Levitt, offer a look at street life in working class communities around New York, which she began photographing in 1936 after meeting Henri Cartier-Bresson. Drawn to the spectacle of everyday life, Levitt embraced the passion and pathos of the community — a time when kids transformed the streets into their playground.
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