The Photography of Helen Levitt: A Retrospective

Photo: Helen Levitt

"Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art," so says acclaimed wordsmith Tom Wolfe. This quote comes from a piece by Wolfe that I read recently, which discusses the sad state of an art world that fails to recognize the greatness of such geniuses as deceased sculptor Frederick Hart. While I cannot wholeheartedly agree with Wolfe's rather bleak assessment, I think he may have been onto something: Artistic genius often goes unrecognized.

This spring a genius of another medium, Helen Levitt, passed away, fairly quietly. Levitt was a master of the lens-both her own and the one that she carried in her hands. She had quite the penchant for noticing just-the-right moments and capturing them on film. Upon her passing there were the standard Times and Art News pieces, but for the most part all seemed quiet on the western front, as if her work never occurred. Levitt's death, not unlike her life, was a quiet unpretentious affair. Yet, still today her work peels back a thick lining to layer upon layer of emotional, physical, even spiritual awareness. There is a certain sense of tragedy about Levitt's photos-almost a sadness in the eyes of many of her subjects, that everything is not quite right but it is what it is. This tragic bliss, as one might call it, is what makes her images so enchanting.

For those unfamiliar, Helen Levitt was a street photographer, famous for her candid shots of New York regulars. When trying to describe her work, I might liken it to that of Cartier Bresson (her mentor), with a ruddier edge and a less-posed feel. That unposed, ruddy quality is a captivating lure for the viewers who are paying attention. Her scenes are oft the kind you catch at one second, and the next they're gone-a girl feigning tears to get her way, children glancing at bubbles floating along a wall, two dear old men inhaling rather large pieces of watermelon on a street corner. Levitt's lens captured and froze moments of time, imprinting memories into a canvas we can all enjoy.

Unpretentious, accessible, real, nothing is overtly glamorous in Levitt's work. However, she enchants viewers with the ordinary; those viewers often see the simple joys of families who look like they are just scraping by, or kids having far too much fun given their unlikely and sparse surroundings. Her photos make the onlooker more appreciative of the simplicities of life, and also more aware of them. As Francine Prose says in the forward to Levitt's "Crosstown" collection,

Encountering Levitt's pictures, taken mostly between 1936 and the present, mostly around Manhattan, is like taking off your sunglasses, or cleaning your spectacles, or just blinking, which is only appropriate, since so many of them seem to have been taken in a blink, and to picture something that will be gone, that was gone, a blink after it was taken. These photographs radically readjust our visual fine tuning to remind us of how rapidly everything changes, of how large a fraction of what we see won't exist in its present form only a heartbeat from now. It's impossible not to notice that the beautiful gypsy kid, caught in mid-motion in the doorway of his apartment, was disappearing even as his portrait was being taken...What makes these pictures so unusual is their instinctive, unstagey, natural grasp of what adds layers of meaning and beauty to a visual image...

It is very true. In her magical way, almost without trying, Levitt brings out a childlike curiosity and zest for life in us all. Levitt's photographs are by no means perfect and they are not for everyone. But for those of us willing to look, her genius can still speak post-mortem.

As a sidenote, Levitt's life doesn't read like the blogs of so many photographers we follow today-jet-setting around the country to shoot the hottest new celebs, or dining open-air pre-fashion show in Milan. There is, instead, a real rootedness in both place and subject amongst much of Levitt's work. Her way of life was not better, necessarily, it was just different. Remarkably different, really. And personally, I think it shows in her images.

Looking at the colored or black and white output of Levitt's aesthetic sensibilities, viewers don't necessarily walk away feeling fully satisfied. Instead, perhaps, they scratch their heads and say "hmm...I think i'll go explore..." Exploring, encountering, experiencing, her photos heighten human awareness. Thus the marks of a true artist: depth of expression, and depth of impact. Good art doesn't give us answers, although it does deepen us and encourage us to look more carefully at the world around us. In my humble opinion, Levitt's work does both. As David Strauss said back in 1997, "Helen Levitt may well be the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time." His words remain just as true today. Head to your local art library and celebrate a genius at work in memory of Levitt's passing; I highly doubt you'll be disappointed.

To see more of Levitt, visit her page at the MOMA or visit this podcast at Obit mag.