Helen Levitt: New York, 1939
Vintage print from the collection of the James Agee Family
March 2, 2020
"Most good photographs, especially the quick and lyrical kind, are battles between the artist and luck, and the happiest victories for the artist are draws. Luck can of course spoil as many photographs as it contributes to, or makes, and can seldom do anything for the photographer who lacks an eye for it, unless he is wholly absorbed in some quite different intention, or is thoroughly naive. It is luck, if you like, that turned the warlike frieze into a wonderful dance, and gave it its strange frame of electrical wiring; but is it?"
Excerpt from James Agee's introduction to HELEN LEVITT - A Way of Seeing
