A compact survey of the work of 20th-century photographer Helen Levitt, best known for her New York street photography; a new volume from the Photofile series curated by Jean-François Chevrier and published by Thames & Hudson.

The classic Photofile series brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers in an attractive format and at a reasonable price. Handsome and collectible, each book contains a selection of the photographer’s most important and representative images in beautiful duotone and/or color, plus an introduction and a bibliography.

Born in Brooklyn in 1913, Helen Levitt is best known for her photographs of New York, which have inspired generations of photographers, collectors, and a general audience entranced by images of daily life in the great city. She captured children at play on the streets of Depression-era New York and chalk drawings on walls, but she also cast her eye upon the adult world, seeking out moments of movement, transience, and theatricality.

She was an assistant to Walker Evans and a friend of Henri Cartier-Bresson but forged her own path with fierce independence and endless curiosity about the world around her.

Helen Levitt’s first major museum exhibition was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943, and a second solo show was held there in 1974. Retrospectives of her work have been shown at museums across America and around the world, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, and the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris.