Helen Levitt (New York City) American photographer, 1913 – 2009
Inspired by her mentors and friends, Walker Evans and Henri Cartier Bresson, Helen Levitt made – for most of the 1940s – black and white photos of children in Spanish Harlem in New York. Her portraits of young children are among the strongest in the history of photography and set the tone for a new documentary style of American photography.
She also was a pioneer in the area of color photographs. Her photos are visual poems in which shape, color and movement play a major role.
In 2008 Levitt received the SPECTRUM prize, the Internationaler Preis für Fotografie der Stiftung Niedersachsen, which was accompanied by a new book:Fotografien 1937-1991.