Helen Levitt

Helen Levitt (1913–2009) began photographing the streets of her native New York in the late 1930s, focusing on working-class neighborhoods such as Hispanic Harlem and the Lower East Side, where the street clearly takes center stage as the setting for everyday life. These scenes of children occupy a central place in a body of work that, as a whole, captivates us with its ability to transform everyday scenes into images that convey all the emotion, mystery, and humor that life can contain, and with which the viewer establishes an immediate connection even though they lack an explicit narrative. This extensive survey presents her complete body of work alongside archival materials, highlighting Levitt’s lasting influence as one of the first professional female photographers.