Helen Levitt

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Helen Levitt b. 1913
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She was born into a not particularly religious
Russian-Jewish family in an Italian-Jewish
neighborhood in Brooklyn, NYC.
As a child she enjoyed roller-skating, bicycling,
swimming and dancing, though she spent much of
her time reading and attending the neighborhood
movie theatre.
In 1930 she dropped out of high school, a
semester short of graduation, she found school
subjects boring and from then on was self taught.
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In 1931 she was 18 and began work for portrait
photographer J. Florian Mitchell. He was hired to
do weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc. For four years
she learned darkroom techniques and other routine
procedures. She saw the work of Anton Breuhl
thanks to Mitchells affiliation with the
Pictorial Photographers of America.
Anton Breuhl, Top Hats. 1929
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Then in 1935 she saw work by Henri
Cartier-Bresson and was so impressed they formed
a kinship and she did not photograph for the year
he lived in New York. She went along with him as
he worked.
Henri Cartier Bresson, Place de l'Europe near St.
Lazare station, Paris.
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Academic Computing
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Beginning in 1945 and through the 1950s, Levitt
joined with Loeb, and a few others making films
that won awards in film festivals across the U.S.
and Europe.
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