Helen Levitt
| Helen Levitt | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 31, 1913 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Died |
March 29, 2009 (aged 95) New York, New York, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Photography |
Helen Levitt (August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009) was an American photographer. She was particularly noted for "street photography" around New York City, and has been called "the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time."
Levitt grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, NY. Her father was a Russian-Jewish immigrant with a wholesale knit-goods business while her mother was a bookkeeper before marriage. She dropped out of high school and started working for J. Florian Mitchell, a commercial portrait photographer in the Bronx, in 1931. There, she learned how to develop photos in the darkroom. She wanted to do something in the arts, but she “could not draw well.” She saw the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, a large influencer on her career, at the Julian Levy Gallery and for the first time saw photography as art. She learned composition by looking at paintings in museums, while also familiarizing herself with the works of the members of the Film and Photo League. She practiced by photographing her mother’s friends with a used Voigtländer camera.
While teaching art classes to children in 1937, Levitt became intrigued with the transitory chalk drawings that were part of the New York children's street culture of the time. She purchased a Leica camera, the favorite of Cartier-Bresson, and began to photograph these works, as well as the children who made them. The resulting photographs were ultimately published in 1987 as In The Street: chalk drawings and messages, New York City 1938–1948.
After In the Street, she started taking more street photography in Spanish Harlem and the Lower East side. During the 1940's, the lack of air conditioning meant people were outside more, which invested her in street photography. Her work was first published in the Fortune magazine's July 1939 issue.
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