david levinthal

One of the most well-known contemporary photographers today, David Levinthal has been playing with his characteristic toys since 1972. Born in San Francisco in 1949, he attended Stanford, Yale, and MIT. He first discovered the technique of staging figures in elaborately created tabletop tableaux while working with his classmate Gary Trudeau to illustrate the book, Hitler Moves East. Together they recreated the Eastern Front of World War Two using toy soldiers. His work represents some of the earliest tendencies in post-modern photography. This print, offered originally in the 1994 PRC Members Print Program, is from his high-regarded series exploring myths of the Wild West, which began in 1986. Levinthal has also examined themes of outer space and romance using his own extensive collection as well as photographing historical 1950s playsets manufactured by the Marx Toy Company.

Levinthal has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His work is shown all over the world and included in such prestigious collections as the Smithsonian, George Eastman House, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

David Levinthal, Untitled, from the series Wild West, 1994. Polaroid color print, 8"x10".