MADRID.- Fundación Mapfre has opened an ambitious exhibition dedicated to American photographer Helen Levitt (1913–2009), offering one of the most complete views of her career to date. Drawn from the full scope of her work and recently accessible archives, the exhibition is now on view at the foundation’s galleries on Paseo de Recoletos in Madrid, following its presentation at the KBr Photography Center in Barcelona.

Widely regarded as one of the most distinctive voices in twentieth-century photography, Levitt transformed ordinary urban life into images filled with mystery, tenderness, and subtle emotional depth. Her photographs often resist straightforward interpretation, turning fleeting street moments into visual puzzles that invite viewers to pause, observe, and connect on an intuitive level.

Although now closely associated with street photography, Levitt’s path was anything but conventional. Born in Brooklyn to a Russian-Jewish family, she left school early but developed a strong artistic sensibility shaped by silent cinema, literature, and theater. Her technical foundation began in a Bronx photography studio, and by the mid-1930s she had joined the New York Film and Photo League, a collective committed to social documentary work. There she encountered figures such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose influence encouraged her to pursue photography independently.

Between the late 1930s and early 1940s, Levitt produced many of the photographs that secured her reputation. Roaming neighborhoods like Spanish Harlem, the Lower East Side, and Brooklyn, she focused on everyday street life—children playing, neighbors talking on stoops, families inhabiting shared urban spaces. Her work captured not spectacle but small, revealing gestures, often balancing humor, empathy, and quiet observation. Recognition came early when The Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted her first solo exhibition in 1943.

The exhibition now on view at Fundación Mapfre highlights how Levitt’s practice extended well beyond the label of “photographer of children,” a description often attached to her after that early MoMA show. Her work explores the broader rhythms of city life: joy and fear, intimacy and isolation, spontaneity and routine. Across decades, she documented human connections unfolding in complex urban environments, always avoiding staged narratives or overt explanations.

Organized into nine sections and featuring nearly 200 photographs, the exhibition traces Levitt’s artistic development from her earliest experiments with a Leica camera to her later color work. Early images reveal her search for direction, sometimes emphasizing somber urban scenes, while others move toward a documentary style infused with ambiguity. One notable thread explores her fascination with children’s chalk drawings in East Harlem, which she photographed for years, often including the young creators beside their ephemeral street artworks.

Another section examines Levitt’s encounters with key figures such as Walker Evans, who encouraged her work and introduced technical approaches that allowed her to photograph candidly in public spaces. Photographs of Romani families from this period demonstrate her growing confidence and sensitivity in portraying people within their everyday surroundings.

A pivotal chapter focuses on Levitt’s five-month stay in Mexico City in 1941. While she continued photographing the streets, the tone of these images differed markedly from her New York work. The playful lyricism of children’s street scenes gave way to harsher, more direct depictions of poverty and social inequality, marking an important turning point in her artistic outlook.

The show also revisits the long-delayed publication A Way of Seeing, conceived in the 1940s with writer and critic James Agee. His reflections emphasized that Levitt’s work was not limited to social observation but also explored themes of melancholy, alienation, and the psychological texture of urban life—qualities that align her vision with the quiet introspection often associated with painters like Edward Hopper.

Levitt’s pioneering use of color photography forms another major focus of the exhibition. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959, she experimented with color at a time when it was still uncommon in serious photographic practice. Working in neighborhoods such as the Bronx during the 1960s and later decades, she chose not to document violence or sensational events. Instead, her color images concentrated on everyday moments—people resting on stoops, casual conversations, children at play—rendered with warmth and dignity. Despite a devastating theft in 1970 that erased much of her early color work, she resumed photographing and continued producing images into the late twentieth century.

Beyond still photography, the exhibition includes her experimental film In the Street, created with Janice Loeb and James Agee. Shot in black and white on the streets of New York, the silent short film extends her photographic vision into motion, capturing the same spontaneous urban choreography that defines her still images.

Accompanying the exhibition, a comprehensive catalogue reproducing all the works on display has been published, featuring essays by curator Joshua Chuang alongside contributions from leading scholars and photographers. Fundación Mapfre has also produced a digital feature in which creative director Malén Denis offers a poetic video interpretation of Levitt’s work, encouraging audiences to experience the photographs through a contemporary lens.

Together, the exhibition presents a portrait of Helen Levitt as an artist who found extraordinary meaning in ordinary life. Through her attentive gaze, the everyday becomes layered with emotion, ambiguity, and humanity—reminding viewers that the most powerful stories are often unfolding quietly in the streets around us.