Leon Levinstein is one of those photographers who sublimated New York in the post-war period. These street reporters, who invented a genre and gave life to humanist photography fleeing all romanticism and idealization. Because the photography of New York authors of the 1960s is a social photography. But Leon Levinstein is nothing like the others. His work is built in solitude and the silent contemplation of crowds. Like Vivian Maier, he is not interested in recognition or notoriety, and fled the world of art and society. For him, the 8th art was a private affair. Despite his discretion, however, Edward Steichen, director of the MoMA’s photography department, spotted him. He collects his works and includes them in Family of Man in 1955, a historic exhibition bringing together 273 artists. The particularity of this mysterious photographer undoubtedly comes from his relationship with bodies. In his images, they occupy all the space and become a real raw artistic material. Through the exhibition Choreography of the bodies, the Parisian gallery Les Douches presents around thirty works by Leon Levinstein around this theme. It is through this prism that the photographer has depicted New York in a completely new way.
Leon Levinstein Fifth Avenue (man with two ladies), c.1959, Gelatin silver print, printed later c.1970, Annotated « B-2 » in pencil, and photographer’s credit stamp in black ink on print verso, Print size: 10 7/8 x 14 inches © Estate Leon Levinstein / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY / Les Douches la Galerie
The body as raw photographic material
The years following the Great Depression and then World War II raised many questions about photography. The documentary style develops a real social value and reporters gain respectability, perceived as essential actors in political, economic and media life. Leon Levinstein, meanwhile, shunned the spotlight and worked in solitude and silence. He was what Walter Benjamin called “a flâneur”. He found his inspiration among the crowds, in the public spaces of working-class neighborhoods. He had a talent for sneaking around by making himself invisible in the crowd. He then turned his twin-lens reflex camera – dating from the war – on its side, so that the people photographed had no idea what he was doing. A great loner and heavy smoker, he brushed against the walls, contemplating the world rather than participating in it. Throughout his urban explorations, he let himself be caught up in bodies and their materiality. His photographs are almost tactile.
Taking literally the teaching of Robert Capa, who always invited street photographers to approach the subject, Leon Levinstein never hesitated to go as close as possible to his models. Tramps, bathers, prostitutes, rabbis, lovers, old people and children: all are represented down to the smallest detail. His photographs present us with almost life-size characters. The frame fills in from below and the density of the body becomes the real subject of the image. In the work of this peerless observer, the silhouette becomes raw photographic material. Like Lisette Model, the photographer works around the heaviness of the body, amplified by the use of close-ups. This heaviness, metaphorically, is that of bruised humanity. ” We are immersed in the heart of the physical and emotional movement of the urban body, explains art critic Magali Jauffret, It was his way of exploring the human condition, of questioning the fate of the poor and the elderly, of a conservative society which was becoming consumerist at a time when, in Europe and particularly in France, so-called humanist photography was on the the point of emerging. »
© à g. Leon Levinstein Handball Players, Houston Street, New York, c. 1969 Gelatin silver print, vintage Mounted. Signed in ink on mount recto Print size: 25 x 20 inches © Estate Leon Levinstein / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY / Les Douches la Galerie, Paris, à d. Leon Levinstein, Back Tattoo, c. 1965 © Estate Leon Levinstein / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY / Les Douches la Galerie, Paris
© à g. Leon Levinstein Coney Island, c.1960-69 Gelatin silver print, vintage Photographer’s credit stamp ink black ink and annotated ”B-3” in unknown hand in pencil on print verso Print size: 11 x 13 3/4 inches © Estate Leon Levinstein / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY / Les Douches la Galerie, Paris, à d. Leon Levinstein Central Park, New York, 1974 Gelatin silver print, vintage Signed in pencil, Leon Levinstein Archive stamp, photographer’s name in pencil in unknown hand, ”H70”, ”22”, and ”93” annotated twice in pencil on print verso Print size: 16 7/8 x 14 1/8 inches © Estate Leon Levinstein / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY / Les Douches la Galerie, Paris
Image d’ouverture : Leon Levinstein Fifth Avenue (man with two ladies), c.1959, Gelatin silver print, printed later c.1970, Annotated « B-2 » in pencil, and photographer’s credit stamp in black ink on print verso, Print size: 10 7/8 x 14 inches © Estate Leon Levinstein / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY / Les Douches la Galerie
