Helen Levitt

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Helen Levitt (born August 31, 1913 in Brooklyn , New York City , † March 29, 2009 there ) was an American photographer and filmmaker . She was one of the most important exponents of New York street photography. Her favorite subjects were children playing in the streets and everyday life in the streets of the poorer neighborhoods.

life and work

Helen Levitt grew up in Brooklyn, where she began working for a portrait photographer from 1931 after finishing school. In 1935 she met Henri Cartier-Bresson , spontaneously bought her own Leica and took her first street photos. In 1938 she met Walker Evans and became his assistant. From 1941, after a trip to Mexico, she worked as a film editor for Luis Buñuel .

After World War II, she began working on her first book project with James Agee . It was only published twenty years later under the title A Way of Seeing , as Helen Levitt was now also active as a filmmaker. The documentary films In the Street and The Quiet One were made in collaboration with James Agee and the painter Janice Loeb . The latter was nominated for an Oscar in 1949 in the category Best Documentary . In addition, Levitt, along with her Janice Loeb and Sidney Meyers, was nominated for an Oscar in the category Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1950 . Helen Levitt's films are considered to be the forerunners of the independent low-budget film .

In the 1950s, Levitt returned to photography, and she was once again drawn to the streets looking for subjects. At first she took photos exclusively in color, from around 1980 onwards she also took black and white photos in parallel. While at the beginning of her career she selected the best from a series of random snapshots, she was now looking for her motifs more purposefully and with more concern for the result.

Most recently, Helen Levitt lived in Greenwich Village , New York , where she died in her sleep in her apartment in 2009 at the age of 95.

Dates of her career

  • 1939 first publications in magazines
  • 1943 first solo exhibition at MoMA ( Museum of Modern Art )
  • 1959 first Guggenheim scholarship
  • 1960 second Guggenheim scholarship
  • 1974 Solo exhibition at MoMA
  • 1991 retrospective in San Francisco and other cities in the USA
  • 1997 participation in the documenta in Kassel
  • 2008 «SPECTRUM» International Prize for Photography from the Lower Saxony Foundation , exhibition in the Sprengel Museum, Hanover

Works (excerpt)

  • Manhattan Transfer - The Subway Photographs of Helen Levitt . Walther König, Cologne 2017, ISBN 978-3-96098-122-0 .
  • Helen Levitt ed. by Peter Weiermair . With contributions by James Agee and Peter Weiermair. Munich ; New York: Prestel 1998, ISBN 3-7913-1974-4 .
  • Helen Levitt. Photographs. Text by Walker Evans. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2008, Leinen, 168 pages, approx. 142 illustrations, including approx. 86 color photos, ISBN 978-3-7757-2169-1 .
  • Helen Levitt: Slide Show: The Color Photographs of Helen Levitt. powerHouse Books, 2005, ISBN 978-1-57687-252-9 .
  • Helen Levitt: Crosstown . powerHouse Books, New York City 2001, ISBN 1-57687-103-7 .

Filmography

See also

literature

  • Andrea Henkens: Flanerie in the big city. In search of the other in the everyday: surreal perspectives in the photographs by Helen Levitt. Tectum, Marburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-8288-8905-7 , dissertation from the University of Leipzig, table of contents
  • Willfried Baatz: Photography: from Louis Daguerre to Nobuyoshi Araki. Gerstenberg Verlag, Hildesheim 2003, 271 pages, ISBN 3-8067-2539-X
  • Walter Moser: Helen Levitt (1913–2009) , The book accompanying the major retrospective in the Albertina Vienna brings together around 130 of her iconic works. 2018, ISBN 978-3-86828-876-6

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Levitt, Helen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer and filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 2009
Place of death Brooklyn , New York City