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HELEN LEVITT, (American, b. 1918), NEW YORK, signed and titled ""Helen Levitt, N.Y." in pencil on...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:22,000.00 - 28,000.00 USD
HELEN LEVITT, (American, b. 1918), NEW YORK, signed and titled   Helen Levitt, N.Y.  in pencil on...
HELEN LEVITT
(American, b. 1918)
NEW YORK
signed and titled ""Helen Levitt, N.Y." in pencil on verso
gelatin silver print
image: 71/2 x 11 in. (19.1 x 27.9 cm)
paper: 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
1948
ESTIMATE: $22,000-28,000
PROVENANCE
From the artist
LITERATURE
John Szarkowski, LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS, NEW YORK, The Museum of Modern Art, 1973, p. 139 (illustrated)
Helen Levitt, CROSSTOWN, NEW YORK, Powerhouse Books, 2001, p. 81 (illustrated)
A consummate chronicler of life in the streets of New York, Helen Levitt occupies a special niche in the history of photography. While Walker Evans called her an "anti-journalist," John Szarkowski elaborated as follows. "Levitt's pictures report no unusual happenings; most of them show the games of children, the errands and conversations pf the middle-aged, and the observant waiting of the old. What is remarkable about the photographs is that these immemorially routine acts of life, practiced everywhere and always, are revealed as being full of grace, drama, humor, pathos, and surprise, and also that they are filled with the qualities of art, as though the street were a stage, and its people were all actors and actresses, mimes, orators, and dancers." (John Szarkowski, LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS, New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1973, p. 138). The pose of the girl at center, her toe gently resting on the step, is sheer poetry.