Helen Levitt, the photographer who captured the theater of the everyday

In the monograph titled Crosstown (2001), Francine Prose writes that looking at a photograph by Helen Levitt (1913-2009) “is like taking off your sunglasses, or cleaning your spectacles, or just blinking.” The images, indeed, seem to be captured in the blink of an eye; in an instant destined to disappear in a few seconds, making us aware of how quickly everything changes. Rarely simple and natural, they endure through their serene and unadorned honesty, poised between documentary and visual poetry.

It was between the late 1930s and early 1940s that the American photographer produced most of the images that made her famous. She focused her gaze on immigrant neighborhoods — the most populated and also the poorest in the city — where much of life unfolded outdoors: on doorsteps and sidewalks in Spanish Harlem, the Lower East Side, Hell’s Kitchen and the East Bronx, as well as in her own borough, Brooklyn.

Her photographs depict the streets as a theater of the everyday. And yet, they capture urban life in its most invisible and elusive flow, freezing the gestures and movements of those who inhabit the city. Her images speak of the strength and dignity of humankind, of grace in the face of adversity, in a way that is both explicit and mysterious. They offer enigmas that impact the viewer, without the need for an explicit story. Such is the case with the photograph titled New York [113th Street], taken circa 1938: it features an urban Halloween scene in a gloomy, neglected courtyard, where a masked child climbs a tree trunk, while another leans on its pronounced curve.

Rooted in realism, Levitt seems to consciously construct a fictional version of the world that she photographs, transforming everyday life into a composition laden with meaning.

The Halloween image is prominently featured in the Barcelona retrospective that the Mapfre Foundation has dedicated to the American photographer. Curated by Joshua Chuang, it can be seen at the KBR Photography Center in Barcelona until February 1, 2026. The retrospective will later travel to Madrid.

The exhibition spans seven decades of Levitt’s work: from her early images dedicated to the victims of the Great Depression, to shots that record the drawings and messages scribbled by children in chalk (Levitt paid attention to graffiti when no one else did). It also touches on photographs taken during her trip to Mexico — the only time she left New York — and culminates with her later work in color, which established her as a pioneer. The clandestine portraits that she took on the subway, along with her powerful audiovisual work, are also highlighted.

Imbued with empathy and a subversive sense of humor, Levitt’s work reminds us that seeing is a creative act that involves both concealing and revealing. The real world possesses a magic comparable to that of any work of fiction, and the artist’s task is to find meaning in everyday life and make it visible to others. This was clear when she photographed a wall, where a doodle resembles a button. Next to the image, the text reads, “button to a secret passage,” a metaphor that inevitably alludes to the photographic medium. Always elusive, when asked what was happening in her images, the artist would usually reply: “Only what you see.” She allowed her work to speak for itself.

It has been said that Levitt was the first American photographer to understand the essence of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photography and put it into practice. “He made me ambitious,” the photographer acknowledged, when asked about the Frenchman. She befriended photojournalist Walker Evans, who involved her in some of his projects, while also introducing her to the writer James Agee and the painter and art historian Janice Loeb. Alongside Agree and Loeb, she made In the Street (1948), a silent film shot in Spanish Harlem with a portable 16mm camera. The photographer, who had apprenticed with Helen van Dongen on the editing of the documentary The Spanish Earth (1937), was in charge of editing the footage of the New York City-based short. Agee wrote the opening text:

“There, unaware and unnoticed, every human is a poet, a masker, a warrior, a dancer.” This is the beginning, before the film gives way to a hypnotic and tender portrait of street life.

The three artists would later work together on the documentary titled The Quiet One (1948), directed by Sidney Meyers and nominated for an Oscar. In this production, Levitt served as director of photography.

Between 1948 and the late 1950s, the artist dedicated herself exclusively to film. And, when she returned to photography, it was as a pioneer of color. She once again roamed the streets to capture that intimate urban choreography, without intrusion.

In 1970, a thief broke into her apartment and stole almost all of her color negatives and prints. However, despite this setback, she was able to renew her enthusiasm for her craft. “She was so in tune with the streets, so elegant in her gestures, that she became invisible, instantly becoming part of the neighborhood, as if she had lived there all her life,” writes the American artist Joel Sternfeld, in the catalog accompanying the exhibition.

“Her wardrobe — chosen with simplicity as its guiding principle — allowed her to fit into any [borough]. Her ability to blend into the street granted her the extra time she needed to compose her color shots, which is much more demanding than [photographing] in black-and-white.”

Levitt’s photographs continue to speak to us today with the same intensity. In a century marked by speed and visual overproduction, her body of work continues to challenge our way of seeing. It does this through its patient attention, its refusal to emphasize and its confidence that the essential unfolds right in front of us. Her photographs don’t seek to explain or correct the world, but simply to observe it, with a mixture of curiosity, respect and wonder.

Helen Levitt. KBR Photography Center, Mapfre Foundation, Barcelona. Until February 1, 2026.