Like other photographers of his generation, Leon Levinstein's aesthetic was formed under the guidance of Alexey Brodovitch, art director of Harper's Bazaar, who emphasized the development of a strong personal style. Distancing himself from other Brodovitch students, including Larry Fink and Garry Winogrand, Levinstein pursued a career in graphic design, preserving photography as a private, personal venture. Armed with a Rollei camera, which he situated sideways so subjects wouldn’t know he was photographing them, Levinstein captured gritty images of the urban working-class, Coney Island beach-goers, and charged interactions on the streets of America with what New York Times art critic Ken Johnson identified as “The Beat generation’s coolly noirish, anti-bourgeois spirit.”
Mardi Gras, New Orleans, 1975, confronts the viewer with the lean physique and menacing stare of a parade-goer who epitomizes the “otherness” of subjects like those seen in the oeuvre of Diane Arbus. Exquisite and exacting in its composition, the photograph brings the young man’s emotional force to life, changing the power relationship of seen and unseen by making would-be voyeurs squeamish. Although Levinstein preferred anonymity during his lifetime, his work was revitalized by a 2010 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.