Semi-Contemporary: David Levinthal

David Levinthal was born in California in 1949. He attended MIT, Yale, and Stanford graduating with a degree from each institution.

Levinthal has many public galleries around the United States and foreign nations as well. He worked with subject matters from Barbie to baseball to x-rated dolls. He constructed all sorts of scenarios with small toys that depict racial and political references to the pop culture of America. Using shoeboxes he also creates some sort of diorama.  He was really interested in the emotions that these settings would evoke out of people. Also he enjoyed photographing toys to depict that way society socializes its young.

"“Ever since I began working with toys, I have been intrigued with the idea that these seemingly benign objects could take on such incredible power and personality simply by the way they were photographed. I began to realize that by carefully selecting the depth of field and making it narrow, I could create a sense of movement and reality that was in fact not there.^"

American Beauties

 

Bad Barbie

 ^{These are examples of his images of toys and how he depicted them...
 http://www.davidlevinthal.com/}