New York

ca. 1939

Not on view

Playing Billiards, 8 Ball, and Straight Pool was once a favorite pastime of petty hustlers and young people on a night out in New York. Off-limits to minors, pool halls were dark, smoky joints for adult games, ricocheting luck, and the winning and losing of cash and romance. A master of street photography where chance is courted, Helen Levitt composed an image in a split second that shows the street yet suggests an interior world hidden just behind the opaqued billiard room windows. The agitated protagonist leans into the parlor. Is she a player or a passerby just awaiting the bus? We will likely never know. What is certain is that she transfers kinetic energy like a moving cue ball to the entire scene surrounding her.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: New York
Artist: Helen Levitt (American, 1913–2009)
Date: ca. 1939
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 5 3/4 × 8 1/2 in. (14.6 × 21.6 cm)
Sheet: 5 3/4 × 8 1/2 in. (14.6 × 21.6 cm)
Mount: 7 5/8 × 9 5/8 in. (19.4 × 24.4 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2020
Object Number: 2020.198
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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