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Berenice
Abbott
(1898-1991)
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 Berenice
Abbott : Changing New York by Bonnie
Yochelson, Berenice
Abbott
Now in paperback, the highly
acclaimed, definitive collection of Abbott's popular New York
photographs. Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) was one of this century's
greatest photographers, and her New York City images have come to
define 1930's New York. The response to The New Press's landmark
hardcover publication of Berenice Abbott: Changing New York was
extraordinary. In addition to receiving rave reviews, it was
chosen a best book of the year by the Wall Street Journal,
Business Week, and New York Newsday, and was featured in Vanity
Fair, Newsweek, and the New York Daily News. A Midwesterner who
came to New York in 1918, Abbott moved to Paris in 1921 and worked
as Man Ray's photographic assistant. Inspired by French
photographer Atget, Abbott returned to America in 1929 to
photograph New York City. With the financial support of the Works
Progress Administration's Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1939,
she was able to realize her ambition to document a "changing
New York," a project that remains the centerpiece of her
career. Now available for the first time in an affordable
paperback edition, Berenice Abbott features more than 300
duotones, arranged geographically in eight sections tracing the
photographer's New York City odyssey. It also includes 113 variant
images, line drawings, and period maps, as well as an explanatory
text, which explores Abbott's compositional choices, her artistic
and historical preoccupations, and the history of New York.
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Berenice Abbot Biography
Abbott was a photographer born in Ohio and
raised there by her mother following her parents divorce. In 1918
she moved to New York City to become a sculptor. Abbott befriended
a Greenwich Village crowd including Djuna Barnes, Man Ray and
Marcel Duchamp. In 1921 she moved to Paris and lived there until
1929, save for a brief stay in Berlin. Abbott worked at several
jobs, often as an artist's model. Near poverty, Ray hired her as
his assistant in 1923 where she learned photography and in 1926
opened her own studio. As a photographer she promoted her own work
and was credited with rediscovering and popularizing the works of
Eugène Atget.
Abbott was acquainted with many lesbians who had
emigrated to Paris as well as their friends and photographed many
of them. Abbott shot her subjects in relaxed, natural poses and
created some of the most memorable photographs from that era. Her
male peers considered her a renegade. Abbott's subjects included
Barnes, Sylvia Beach, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, James Joyce,
Marie Laurencin, Claude McKay and Barnes' lover, Thelma Wood.
When she returned to New York, Abbott
taught and compiled two photo documentaries, "Changing New
York" and "Route 1." In 1958 she began a series
of science photographs which reestablished her reputation as a
leading photographer. Abbott's later years were spent living and
working in Maine.
Berenice Abbott is considered one of the 20th
century's greatest photographers. Her New York City images,
especially the Changing New York project of 1935-39, have come to
define Depression-era New York.
Related Resources:
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Online images from The Miriam & Ira Wallach
Division of Art, Prints and Photographs Collection at the
Humanities and Social Sciences Division of the New York Public
Library
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Short biography of Berenice Abbott, but one that
fails to mention Abbott's associations with early to mid-century
Lesbian Culture.
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Part of the The Miriam & Ira Wallach
Division of Art, Prints and Photographs Collection at the
Humanities and Social Sciences Division of the New York Public
Library
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
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