Levitt, Helen (1913–)
Levitt, Helen (1913–)
American photographer. Born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, NY, 1913; dau. of Sam Levitt (businessman) and May (Kane) Levitt; left high school at 17, one semester short of graduation; never married; no children.
Best known for documentary pictures of street life in New York, 1st in the Italian-Jewish neighborhood of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, where she grew up, and later in environs of East Village, the garment district, and the Lower East Side; at 18, went to work for a photographer of standard portraits in the Bronx (1931); gravitated toward Film Photo League, a group of young, socially conscious photographers and filmmakers whose influence moved her to begin to experiment with unposed shots; purchased small, second-hand Leica and began to prowl neighborhoods (1936), often photographing children at play; shared darkroom with Walker Evans (1938–39); hired by film director Luis Buñuel as an apprentice film cutter for films he was making for Museum of Modern Art; worked as assistant editor in Film Division of Office of War Information (1944–45); with Janice Loeb and James Agee, filmed a documentary on streets of East Harlem, In the Street (1952), followed by The Quiet One (1948); taught at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
See also Phillips and Hambourg, Helen Levitt (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1991); and Women in World History.