Published to accompany a major touring retrospective, this is the most ambitious and comprehensive survey of Helen Levitt’s work to date. Drawing from her complete archive, the volume showcases her entire six-decade output, from her early 1930s Leica street photography in New York to her pioneering color work in the 1970s and 80s. It features rarely seen images from her 1941 trip to Mexico alongside the full original edit of her 1965 classic “A Way of Seeing.” Levitt’s lens famously captured the theater of the street, focusing on children at play and the subtle, tender interactions of urban life that James Agee described as “pure spontaneity of true folk art.” This volume stands as the definitive record of one of the 20th century’s most influential photographers.
