Helen Levitt

Laurence Miller Gallery takes pleasure in presenting HELEN LEVITT: Selected Color Work 1959-1984, in honor of her new monograph from PowerHouse Books, SLIDE SHOW.

Well known for her lyrical, gentle and insightful black and white photographs, this exhibition of thirty works in color by this 90 year old master reveals Levitt’s uncanny eye for discovering subtle, often overlooked relationships between pedestrians and their surroundings, from store windows to broken down cars. Though color is never her subject, it is always an essential ingredient in this work.

Included in the exhibition will be several of her classics: New York , 1980 (Spider Girl), depicting a girl twisting her body next to a parked car; New York, 1972 (Boys with Bubbles), showing two boys fascinated with a huge bubble; and New York, 1972 (Kids with Laundry) in which six children each act out their own private dance. Many color works never before printed will be making their exhibition debut as well.

Helen Levitt began shooting in color in 1959, with the assistance of back to back Guggenheim Foundation grants. In 1974 the Museum of Modern Art presented a continuous slide projection, one of the earliest examples of a slide show presentation by a museum, and one of the first exhibitions of serious color photography anywhere in the world.

Helen Levitt
Slide Show: Color Photographs 1959-1984