Helen Levitt
I’m a long time admirer of Helen Levitt’s photographs, which makes it that much more annoying that I struggled so much with this drawing! Sometimes things don’t end up looking they way you wanted them to in your mind. I like the idea of using digital watercolor in unexpected places. Just gotta figure out how. Plus when you have so many brush choices in Adobe Fresco - I’m still trying to figure out the ones I like that give me the results I’m expecting. Conte crayon? Pastels? Chalk? 🤯 I also tried working on this late at night which I’ve learned doesn’t yield good results for me. So it’s time to move on to my next art history subject. Onward!
All that said, I adore these kids having fun in this photo from 1940. Women, children and animals were common subjects for Helen Levitt, who started photographing New York City street scenes in the 1930s. Her work was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s inaugural exhibition in 1939. Levitt empowered her subjects at a time when new laws were being imposed on communities regarding the use of urban spaces. She celebrated the people of the city, turning mundane or fleeting scenarios into drama. Her work is often described as lyrical, and it is.
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Illustration inspired by: Helen Levitt, New York, 1940, The Museum of Modern Art, 435.1942, © 2021 Film Documents LLC