Helen Levitt: Vintage Graffiti - Laurence Miller Gallery

Laurence Miller Gallery Exhibition Sept 9 - October 29, 2004

Helen Levitt vintage graffiti

From September 9^th through October 29^th,2004, Laurence Miller Gallery will exhibit a selection of approximately fifteen vintage photographs by Helen Levitt. These classic images of graffiti were made on the streets and sidewalks of New York City circa 1939.

Helen Levitt briefly taught art to schoolchildren in 1937 under the Federal Art Project. Walking to these classes, she began to record the transitory nature of life in the street by focusing on drawings and messages scrawled on sidewalks, girders, walls—marks that remained only as long as weather permitted or before someone else’s scratches took their place. Looking at these images, in which calligraphic curves and lines mimic the human gestures of her more well-known street pictures, one is reminded of the key element of Helen Levitt’s work: the ability to capture that moment when the mundane becomes the poetic.

Helen Levitt lives and works in New York City. Her still-active career spans a 65-year period, and her most recent book of pictures, Here and There, came out in February of this year.

(click image for detail view)

Untitled
(Come in Sucker) c.1939
vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled
(Washington chopping down
the Cherry Tree) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled
(female creature) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print, signed
Reproduced page 47, In The Street

Untitled
(Flash in the pan) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled, c.1939
(You are crazy to be a good girl)
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled
(bicyclist) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print, signed
Reproduced page 53, In the street

Untitled
(man with necktie) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled
(Fresh Eggs) c.1939
Gelatin silver print
Printed 50's - 60's, signed verso
Reproduced page 37, In the Street

Untitled
(golfer) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso
Reproduced page 47, In the Street

Untitled
(four girls faces by steps) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print, signed
Reproduced page 73, In the Street

Untitled
(5 cent soda) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled
(horse's head/Mary) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print, signed

Untitled
(Humpty-Dumpty man) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled
(couple walking) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print, signed
Reproduced page 50, In the Street

Untitled
(floating figure) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print, signed
Reproduced page 21, In the Street

Untitled
(Dear Jane) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso
Reproduced page 61, In the Street

Untitled
(erections) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Untitled
(Listen doublecrosser) c.1939
Vintage gelatin silver print
Signed on verso

Please note: Each of the above images is available in a signed, contemporary 11 x 14" print.

"Fresh Eggs" and "5-cent soda" are also available in a signed and numbered limited edition of 7,
approximately 40 x 30" and mounted on aluminum.

Inquire about price and availability

Go to exhibition: Ellen Phelan: Family Romance

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