CHEAP PERFUME AND FRIED CHICKEN

Leon Levinstein was a photographer's photographer, otherwise forgotten by time. But a new show of his black-and-white street pictures at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, deliciously called “Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players”, may help to revive is name. His photographs, according to The Economist, "are raw and energetic, with rubbish-strewn streets, stooped old men, fat painted ladies and posturing youths in tight jeans....These 44 images chronicle life as it is lived in the city: kinetic and rough, with little beauty but plenty of pride. Levinstein, who died in 1988, often shot his subjects up close and at odd angles. The result is often unflattering but affectionate, full of the small pleasures of the day-to-day. The gallery seems fragrant with cigarette smoke, cheap perfume and fried chicken."

Read this interview with Jem Cohen for Levinstein's own insight into his work, which includes such goodies as:

Well, it’s sort of a vicarious experience when you photograph. Because you’re always on the outside. They’re having a good time there, maybe a family, or a couple families, having a picnic, eating this fried chicken and potato salad and all that junk. And you’re on the outside, you know, trying to sneak a picture.

And:

A good photograph will prove to the viewer how little our eyes permit us to see. Most people, really, don’t see—see only what they have always seen and what they expect to see—where a photographer, if he’s good, will see everything. And better if he sees things he doesn’t expect to see.

Picture credit: Leon Levinstein (American, 1910–1988), Handball Players, Lower East Side, 1950s–1960s, © Howard Greenberg Gallery