Berenice Abbott

Springfield, Ohio | 1898 - 1991

Rothman’s Pawn Shop, 1938. From Changing New York Series, 1935-1939. Large-format gelatin silver print. Printed 1979. 19 1/4 in. x 15 3/16 in. Number 16 from the edition of 60.

Berenice Abbott attended Ohio State University. In 1918, she moved to New York and then to Paris in 1923, where she was introduced to Man Ray, who hired her as his photography assistant. Despite having no experience in photography, Abbott soon started to produce her work, eventually opening a studio of her own. In 1926, Abbott had her first solo show, featuring dynamic portraits of the artistic and literary avant-garde.

Upon returning to America, Abbott took on commercial assignments and taught photography at the New School for Social Research. With the support of the WPA Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1939, she created the seminal body of work, Changing New York, an extensive socio-historical record of New York’s vanishing past and the construction of its modern future. The project results were distributed to high schools, libraries, and various public institutions throughout the metropolitan area; to this day, Changing New York is an invaluable record of New York’s history.

“Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term - selectivity.”

Abbott’s work was included in many influential exhibitions of the era, including the Salon de l’escalier 1928; Fotografie der Gegenwart, 1929; and Photography: 1839-1937, 1938, as well as in a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1932. In 1970, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, hosted a career retrospective entitled Berenice Abbott: Photographs.