Street cred – how Helen Levitt turned a cool eye on life in New York

Zakia Uddin | Apollo | 21st December 2021

One critic calls Levitt a “quiet genius” of modern photography. Her photographs of street life – most famously children – in New York’s poor neighbourhoods helped define street photography. First in black and white and then in colour – but always with a certain tenderness – her images show an eye for the off-kilter and portray the street as “above all, a theater and a battleground”. More images are here.