Karen’s Quirky Style Honors Trailblazing Photographer Helen Levitt

Who was the most influential street photographer you never heard of? In honor of Women’s History month, I set out to answer this question and discovered the wondrous, reverent world of Helen Levitt (1913-2009). Since she was still active into the 2000s, you may have seen Helen out and about on the streets of New York, capturing the poetic street life of children and the political struggles of working-class people.

Ms. Levitt was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in 1913. Her first career was teaching art. She began photographing her students’ pavement chalk drawings in the mid-1930s. Her Leica camera captured the New York children’s street culture of the Village, expressing the whimsy of ordinary community street life in the city. She lived at 4 and 6 East 12th Street, and remained active as a photographer in New York for nearly 70 years.

Helen had a talent for immersing herself in her surroundings, which was natural as she was a member of the community herself, as a teacher, artist, and neighbor. Her photographs were included in the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art’s photography department, in 1940. You might be familiar with her iconic 1939 image of children trick-or-treating on the stoop of a brick building with wide iron bannisters.

In 1943, at age 30, she mounted her first solo exhibit at MOMA—an extraordinary achievement in that era for a woman in a male-dominated field. This is why critics have called Levitt “the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time.” She was “rediscovered” in the 1970s during a period of feminist historical research in the arts, and later received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship. Although never reaching “household name” status like Annie Liebowitz, Levitt was a trailblazer for female photographers and women in the arts. You can view her work on MOMA’s website.

As you might expect, the Village Preservation Society—not unlike the 1968 Kinks’ song “Village Green Preservation Society”—is hosting many events this month to celebrate and honor the history of the remarkable and transformative women who lived, worked, and created in the Village. Visit their Events page for upcoming Women’s History Month walking tours and other celebrations. Or take a Women’s History Tour here from the comfort of your living room. Helen Levitt’s home is on the tour and the web version shows some of her iconic photographs.

March is also the sixth anniversary of this Karen’s Quirky Style column! Check out my inaugural column, which was actually a combination of street style and Karen’s Quirky Style. Honoring Helen Levitt’s street photography took me down memory lane to my own history as a photographer.

My dad lent me his Canon TX 50mm camera for a vacation trip to Maui in 1980, and then gave the camera to me before he died in 2000. I began taking photos regularly in 2008, when I launched my first blog. For this column, I took the Canon out of the bottom drawer, dusted it off, and loaded a cartridge of 35mm film (obtained at Luster and developed at LTI Lightside).

Amy and I drew fresh chalk images on the sidewalk in front of Helen Levitt’s home, similar to those in her celebrated photographs. Phil took pictures of me taking pictures of the chalk drawings. Then a passerby took a picture of the three of us! Although the quality of the prints obtained from the Canon are not crisp and clear like stellar Phil’s, I like the archival feeling they offer, hearkening back to the 1970s when the camera was born.

Where We Ate Afterward: Jack’s Wife Freda – 70 University Place. Recommended: Weekend special eggs Benny with smoked salmon and pink, beet-colored hollandaise. Glorious cantaloupe Bellinis.

Style Notes: The year is feminist-empowered 1973. The look is granola. I absolutely love the shades-of-green pattern mash-up. It was especially important to me to wear this faded moss green corduroy jacket with sheepskin collar, a hand-me-down from my father. He proudly bought it around 1960, with his first machinist paycheck as a new immigrant to Canada. As the jacket aged, he wore it to chop firewood and mow the lawn. It always makes me feel close to him.

Karen Rempel is a New York-based writer, model, and artist. Her Karen’s Quirky Style column illuminates quirky clothes and places in Manhattan. For past stories and detailed style notes, see https://karenqs.nyc.