[Graffiti: Chalk Drawing of Figure with Double Pupils, New York City]
Helen Levitt practiced photography with a small handheld camera on the streets of New York, making tender depictions of ordinary city people, especially children. The street was a stage upon which her young subjects played games, performed improvisational dramas, and made fantastic, untutored chalk drawings such as this figure with double pupils and a hovering crown. For Levitt, graffiti and children's drawings were present-day emblems of a precivilized, magical art, both spontaneous and archetypal.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Graffiti: Chalk Drawing of Figure with Double Pupils, New York City]
- Artist: Helen Levitt (American, 1913–2009)
- Date: ca. 1940
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 20.0 x 13.7 cm (7 7/8 x 5 3/8 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1987
- Object Number: 1987.1073.1
- Rights and Reproduction: © Estate of Helen Levitt
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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