Early years
From a very young age, Helen Levitt had shown a great interest in the artistic world, attending ballet, film and music classes. Little by little, he was introduced to the world of painting; however, his paintings were not entirely good. Thanks to his work as an assistant in the photographic workshop of a friend, Jay Florian Mitchell, his interest in photography began. It was 1931, and Helen, at eighteen years old, was earning $6 a week. He worked on tasks such as printing and developing the photographs, at the same time that he learned the photographic technique that, later, he would be able to practice with his first camera: a second-hand Voigtländer.
Between 1931 and 1935, she approached the photographic movements of the moment, as the Workers Film and Photo League photographic group, a cooperative of filmmakers, photographers and writers dedicated to promoting social change through film and photography by generating artwork for left-wing publications in the United States, to immortalise the most everyday moments of a society that sought to lead social changes.
"I decided that I should take photos of working-class people and contribute to the movements. Whatever the movements, there was socialism, communism, whatever was happening."
Helen Levitt. 1
Documentary Photographer
Helen L. had various references at the beginning of her career, at the same time that she was nourished by the photographic exhibitions that were in her city. This is how he learned about the work of Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Cartier-Bresson. With the latter, in addition to admiring her photographs, she shared a work friendship that helped her grow. Helen Levitt realised that photography was much more than a mere snapshot because she had in her power the possibility of doing what she always wanted: art. Little by little, her level of work grew and with it her income, so he acquired a second-hand Leica camera. Her contacts with fellow guild members were getting better and better, so she met Walker Evans, a photographer whom he accompanied on his projects and with whom he contributed to the American Photographs exhibition for MoMA in 1938.
Her personal work began with the first photographs in the neighbourhoods of Spanish Harlem and the Lower East Side, where her main objective was snapshots of children, but where the social environment in general also took on importance. Photographs of neighbours talking to each other or sitting on the stairs, almost at the end of the day to have some fresh air on hot days, or children playing in the streets, were a work that tried to capture reality without being made up of unnatural poses. Helen Levitt took from her teacher and friend, Walker Evans, the importance of reality and, thanks to this aesthetic, Helen managed to exhibit at MoMA in 1943 the work Helen Levitt: Photographs of Children.
"Helen Levitt, born in New York, quietly wanders the bustling streets of the city or finds herself on the corner of an empty lot where children play. With her Leica around her neck, she unwittingly catches them in the absorbent to do their own worlds."
MoMA, 1943 2
Mexico and filmography
Years later, possibly influenced by Cartier Bresson's photos of Mexico, which she had seen years before, but also photographs of other photographers such as Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Edward Weston, and having acquired a certain renown, she decided to travel to Mexico with the wife of James Agee, Alma. In 1941, she photographed people on the streets of Mexico City in the area of Tucabaya, La Merced, in the same way that she looked for that type of photography in her own city. It was the only time she left New York. That same year, he began to investigate other fields related to photography, such as cinema, meeting the Spanish film director, Luis Buñuel, exiled in the United States as a result of the Spanish Civil War, as a collaborator in his pro-American documentaries during the Second World War.
Years later, after the cinematographic experience with Luis Buñuel, Helen carried out moving image projects in the same New York neighbourhoods where she used to work. From this work, two of his most important film projects were born: "In the Street" (1948) and "The Quiet One" (1948). They were black and white documentaries where the daily experiences of ordinary people were collected. In 1949, her work was recognised with two Oscar nominations and a National Board of Review Award nomination for the second-best film of the year.
Last year.- color photography
In 1959, he received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation with which he began a colour photographic work, leaving black and white photography for specific projects. After ten years of work, all her photographs were stolen, something that seriously affected the artist. He decided to return to his origins, that is, to return to the streets of New York; however, he seemed to run into a reality quite different from the memory: "the children had disappeared from the streets, they were at home watching TV, smoking drugs or doing whatever they did". 3
On September 26, 1974, the MoMA inaugurated an exhibition with her work entitled: Helen Levitt in colour.
Her last days as a photographer varied between colour and white and black, depending on the scene and according to her own criteria, Helen Levitt solved the scene that interested her. Little by little, with the limitations of age, he changed his Leica for an automatic Contax, which was more comfortable to use. This continued until his death on March 29, 2009.
The New York Times described her as: “a major photographer of the 20th century who caught fleeting moments of surpassing lyricism, mystery and quiet drama on the streets of her native New York”. 4
NOTES.-
1. Marvin Hoshino and Thomas Zand. "Manhattan Transit: The Subway Photographs of Helen Levitt". Cologne: Walther König, 2017, p.67.
2. Exhibition. Helen Levitt: Children Photographs, MoMA, 1943.
3. Adam Gopnik. "Improvised City: Helen Levitt’s New York". New York: The New Yorker, 19/11/2001.
4. Margarett Loke. "Helen Levitt, Who Froze New York Street Life on Film, Is Dead at 95". New York: The New York Times, 30/03/2009.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-
- Lírica Urbana: Fotografías 1936-1988. Madrid: La Fábrica, 2010.
- Helen Levitt by Helen Levitt. New York: powerHouse Books, 2008.
- Marvin Hoshino and Thomas Zand. «Manhattan Transit: The Subway Photographs of Helen Levitt». Cologne: Walther König, 2017.
- A Way of Seeing. Helen Levitt. Durham: Duke University Press, 1965.
