American Perspectives: Photographs from the Polaroid
Collection; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photogra-
phy, Tokyo, Japan
Made in California, 1900–2000; Los Angeles County
Museum, Los Angeles, California
2001 Diabolical Beauty; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts
Forum, Santa Barbara, California
True Fictions; Museum Bad Arolsen, Kassel, Germany
Toying with Reality; Houston Center for Photogra-
phy, Houston, Texas
Nazi, 1933–1999; Patrimonie Photographique, Hoˆ tel
Sully, Paris, France
2002 Contemporary American Photography 1970–2000;
Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, Korea
New Visions of the American West; Nassau County
Museum of Art, New York
Selected Works
Hitler Moves East, 1975–1977
Modern Romance, 1984–1986
The Wild West, 1987–1989
American Beauties, 1989–1990
Mein Kampf, 1993–1994
Blackface, 1995–1998
Further Reading
Levinthal, David.Netsuke. Essay by Eugenia Parry. Paris:
Galerie Xippas, 2004.
———.David Levinthal: Modern Romance. Essay by Euge-
nia Parry. Los Angeles: St. Ann’s Press, 2001.
———.XXX. Interview by Cecilia Anderson. Paris: Galerie
Xippas, 2000.
———.Blackface. Essay by Manthia Diawara. New Mex-
ico: Arena Editions, 1999.
———.Mein Kampf. Essay by James E. Young, intro-
duction by Roger Rosenblatt, afterward by Garry
Trudeau. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms Publishers,
1998.
———.Barbie Millicent Roberts. Preface by Valerie Steele.
New York: Pantheon, 1998.
———.David Levinthal: Work from 1975–1996. Essay and
interviews by Charles Stainback and Richard Wood-
ward. New York: International Center of Photography,
1997.
———.Small Wonder: Worlds in a Box. Essay by David
Corey. Washington DC: National Museum of American
Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1995.
———.Dark Light: David Levinthal Photographs 1984–
1994. Essay by David Allan Mellor. London: The Photo-
graphers’ Gallery, 1994.
———.Desire. Essay by Andy Grundberg. San Francisco, CA:
Friends of Photography, Ansel Adams Center, 1993.
———.Die Nibelungen. Text by Julien Robson and Andrea
Hurton. Vienna, Austria: Wiener, Staatsoper, Galerie H.
S. Steinek, 1993.
———.The Wild West. Edited by Constance Sullivan,
essay by Richard Woodward. Washington, DC: Smith-
sonian Institution Press, 1993.
———.American Beauties. Essay by Rosetta Brooks. Santa
Monica, CA: Pence Gallery and New York: Laurence
Miller Gallery, 1990.
Levinthal, David, and Garry Trudeau.Hitler Moves East:
A Graphic Chronicle, 1941–1943. New York: Sheed,
Andrews & McMeel, 1977.
CLAUDE LE
́
VI-STRAUSS
French
Claude Le ́vi-Strauss was born in Belgium and ed-
ucated in France. By the mid-1930s, he was begin-
ning to develop a whole new approach to the study
of what were then termed primitive cultures. Based
on his studies of these cultures, many of which
enjoyed very little contact with the modern world,
he was also advancing interesting theories regard-
ing kinship configurations. Le ́vi-Strauss would
eventually become known as the father of ‘‘struc-
tural anthropology,’’ and would join the elite Eur-
opean and American intellectual circles. He held
a distinguished post at the University of Paris,
counting Roland Barthes, philosopher Michel Fou-
cault, and influential psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan
among his colleagues. For Le ́vi-Strauss structural
analysis was a methodology to discern universal
human truths that transcended historical time,
and he published numerous anthropological tracts
that put forth his influential views:Tristes Tropi-
ques; The Savage Mind and The Raw and the
Cooked: Mythologies. As a hobby, and also as a
way of documenting his work, Le ́vi-Strauss began
photographing the various tribes with whom he
interacted. To illustrate certain points, Le ́vi-Strauss
included some of these photographs in his publica-
tions. However, it was not until 1994, with the
publication of his photographic memoir,Saudades
Do Brasil(nostalgia for Brazil), that Le ́vi-Strauss
made his most significant contribution to the field
of photography.
LE ́VI-STRAUSS, CLAUDE