[Man Lying on Roof of Car]

1970s

Not on view

A master of postwar American street photography, Levinstein is best known for his candid, unsentimental black-and-white figure studies made in New York City neighborhoods, from Times Square and the Lower East Side to Coney Island. His graphic virtuosity—seen in raw, expressive gestures and seemingly monumental bodies—is balanced by an unusual compassion for his off-beat subjects. He worked with the camera at extremely close range and focused on the faces, flesh, poses, and movements of city dwellers in their myriad forms: sunbathers, young couples, children, businessmen, beggars, prostitutes, proselytizers, society ladies, and characters of all stripes. Here, in the New Orleans French Quarter—one of the nation’s most notorious sites for unabashed debauchery—Levinstein confronts the prone form of a happy Mardi Gras reveler sleeping off his nighttime fun in a mobile bed manufactured in Detroit.

Artwork Details

Title: [Man Lying on Roof of Car]
Artist: Leon Levinstein (American, Buckhannon, West Virginia 1910–1988 New York)
Date: 1970s
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: 34.3 x 25.4 cm (13 1/2 x 10 in.)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Gift of a private collector, 2011
Object Number: 2011.551.43
Rights and Reproduction: © Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

By Leon Levinstein

In the same medium

From the same time and place

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[Man with Newspaper in Pocket, Looking Over Shoulder]

Leon Levinstein

1970s–80s

[Street Scene: Woman in Blonde Wig and Tight Dress, New York City], Leon Levinstein American, Gelatin silver print — [Street Scene: Woman in Blonde Wig and Tight Dress, New York City]
Leon Levinstein
1960s

Handball Players, Lower East Side, NY, Leon Levinstein American, Gelatin silver print — Handball Players, Lower East Side, NY
Leon Levinstein
1950s–60s

[Blind Man with Tin Cup Attached to Winter Coat, New York], Leon Levinstein American, Gelatin silver print — [Blind Man with Tin Cup Attached to Winter Coat, New York]
Leon Levinstein
1950s

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