New York City, c. 1945
Gelatin silver print, printed c. 1970
Image size: 11 x 7 ½ in.
Sheet size: 14 x 11 in.
Signed, titled, and dated on verso
December 2, 2024
This delightful, and delightfully absurd, photograph by Helen Levitt captures the way that youth and artistic creation converge around a sense of play. This was a wellspring that Levitt returned to again and again, celebrating the way that children see the world with fresh eyes and seem to remake it effortlessly—in this case turning an abandoned shipping crate into a game which we suspect even they don't know the rules to.
In pictures like this one, many have noted her knack for finding the uncanny in the everyday, and observe that it reflects the influence of European Surrealism on American photography at that time. There is no doubt that she was guided by her artistic contacts in New York City, and she worked at a time when the city's artistic community had gained an infusion of talent as European artists fled fascism abroad, but her work resists being the sum of her influences. This is the mark of a great artist, that even when we examine the way in which her work was enriched by the context around her, it is never reducible to those sources of inspiration, and always stands singularly apart and outside of time.
