New York
Helen Levitt
American, 1913–2009
1984
A color street photograph printed as a chromogenic print in which Helen Levitt quietly frames an unposed moment of an elderly woman and a young boy on a New York sidewalk to reveal the quiet dignity of everyday life.
The image feels intimate and cinematic: the boy’s arm on the woman’s shoulder and their downcast faces are set against a dark pile of tires and a scuffed red doorway, giving the ordinary street a poignant, human weight.
As an example of Levitt’s humanist street photography, it helped expand what subjects and materials—casual urban encounters rendered in color—could be treated as poetic, art-historical photography.
Medium
Chromogenic print, printed c. 2005
Dimensions
11 15/16 × 18" (30.4 × 45.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Marvin Hoshino
Accession
43.2010.x1-x2
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
