Helen Levitt

With over 220 photographs, a film and colour slides, City at Play brings more than fifty years of work by Helen Levitt (1913-2009), one of the most important street photographers of the twentieth century, together in one exhibition. Throughout her career, Levitt photographed life on the streets of New York: children playing under an open fire hydrant, women whispering in a doorway, a couple in the subway. Never posed or sensational, but full of subtle humour, tenderness and an eye for the everyday.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

She said little about her work: ‘Just what you see. If it were easy to talk about, I’d be a writer.’ Between 1938 and 1940 Levitt created her most iconic work and developed her distinctive photographic style. She used a range of techniques, including a special viewfinder, an attachment that allowed her to look in one direction while the camera pointed in another, keeping her virtually unnoticed. The resulting images show people who seem entirely absorbed in their own world: a child immersed in play, someone briefly pausing on a busy street.

Cover image: Helen Levitt, N.Y., 1976 | © Film Documents LLC, courtesy Zander Galerie