Manhattan Transit – Helen Levitt

The Subway Photographs of Helen Levitt

Brooklyn born Helen Levitt (*1913–†2009) is considered one of the most famous New York street photgraphers and well known for her series of playing children in poorer parts of the Big Apple. In the late 1930s together with the legendary Walker Evans she started secretly taking photos of passengers in the local subway and in her later career came back to the subject in 1978.

Manhattan Transit exclusively focuses on these more recent black and white works on 84 pages, mainly taken in train cars but also on subway stations. With her well trained observing eye she captured the everyday New Yorker: couples, dressed up elders, families, newspaper readers, or simply loners on their way to work or through the metropolis.

With her authentic style she accidentally recorded the daily phenomenon of graffiti writing on the subway insides as well in an era where the outsides headed to the peak of stylewriting. Flowy marker and spray can tags surround the passengers and names like VOICE OF THE GHETTO (STAYHIGH149), FATES5, TOPCAT, HARE, POLLO136, SLICK133, ARROW138, FROGII, PEANUT, BONANZA, SURF150, HOY56, POSE and others catch our attention with today’s historic point of view.

Manhattan Transit shows a lesser known part of Levitt’s work that anyway brilliantly shows the late 1970s metropolitan life in 52 photographs. The cloth bound hardcover comes with an introduction by curator and expert in the field David Campany. We did get our hands on some of the last copies of this 2017 gem you might had not on your radar yet.

84 pages, 24,7 x 21,5 cm, cloth bound embossed hardcover
Language: English
Release date: 2017
ISBN: 978-3-96098-122-0
Publisher: Galerie Thomas Zander / Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König