Untitled
David Levinthal American
Not on view
This photograph of toy soldiers and tanks in battle is a rare work from Levinthal's first series of photographs of toy figures. It predates by three years Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43, Levinthal's collaborative project with the cartoonist Garry Trudeau published in 1977. Although the image was literally constructed on the linoleum bedroom floor of Levinthal's childhood home in California, the photograph has the gritty, out-of-focus quality of a photojournalist's image sent back from the front. By perceptively shortening the camera's depth of field, Levinthal simulates the experience of witnessing a tank exploding in the distance. The effect is not exactly that of actual war but of child's play come to life and gone terribly awry.
