Live Auction 7434Photographs
HELEN LEVITT (b.1918)
Lot 61 PROPERTY FROM THE THOMAS WALTHER COLLECTION

Helen Levitt's clear-eyed view of children's street life is sympathetic and brutally honest. She takes children on their own terms and sees the extraordinary paradox of their lives, watching them duck and dive between total fantasy and hard reality.

MAURICE SENDAK, author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

HELEN LEVITT (b.1918)

New York, c.1942

Closed13 November 2007

Price Realised

GBP 29,300

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HELEN LEVITT (b.1918)
New York, c.1942
gelatin silver print
signed twice, titled 'N.Y.' and dated in pencil/ink on reverse of mount
6 7/8 x 9¼in. (17.5 x 23.3cm.)

From the artist;
with Laurence Miller Gallery, New York;
to the Thomas Walther Collection, 1987;
Christie's, New York, 5 April 1995, lot 38;
with Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York;
acquired by present owner.

This rare vintage print of Levitt's iconic image was part of a selection of works from the Thomas Walther Collection which was sold at Christie's in 1995. Mr Walther's enduring passion for those images which he deems 'an affirmation of life through the more or less unusual grasp of the moment'1 led him to re-acquire this print from Howard Greenberg Gallery.

Specialist note

1 Quoted in 'Connoisseurs & Collectors', Aperture, no.124, summer, 1991.