Although Levitt (1913-2009) didn't join the Photo League, she was inspired by the members who concentrated on taking spontaneous photos of everyday life on the streets of New York. A big inspiration, in 1935, was meeting Cartier-Bresson and joining him when he had an assignment in Brooklyn and when she was only thirty MoMA had a 1943 exhibition with fifty-six photos she took of children playing in the streets of the city. Some of these appeared in her well-known 1965 book 'A way of seeing.'
This lovely book of Levitt's photos is based on an exhibition by Fundación MAPFRE. As well as 365 photos, it has seven illustrated essays. I thought the one by Joel Sternfeld particularly interesting; he considers her colour work from the early Sixties onward. This essay and colour photos are printed on a gloss art paper (the other pages are on a matt art stock).
Levitt is rightly considered an important American photographer from the latter decades of the last century and this finely produced book is a celebration of her work.
