Berenice Abbott (1898-1991)
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| Berenice Abbott by Hank O'Neal 1979 |
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| Eugene Atget |
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Changing New York
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| Changing New York |
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| MIT Physics Project: Parabolic Mirror |
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| MIT Physics Project: Time Lapse |
Berenice Abbott was a pioneering female photographer whose career extended from the 1920s to the late 1960s. Her photographic career began after she moved to Paris and became Man Ray's darkroom assistant (the primary qualification for the job was that she know nothing about photography). She later wrote "I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else." Ray allowed her to use his equipment, and she was soon taking portraits of the illuminati of the Paris arts world. Ray introduced her to
Eugene Atget, the pioneering Parisian documentary/street photographer, and she became interested in his work.
Abbott returned to New York in 1929 and immediately saw its photographic potential - this was a time of rapid change in the city's size, demographics, and architecture, and, like Atget, she was compelled to photograph it. She worked on this project without external funding for 6 years, then was hired by the Federal Art Project (a New Deal work program) to direct what had now become her Changing New York project. Her focus became the interaction between the people of their city and their changing environment, and the contrasts between the old and the new in the city. She used a Century Universal camera that produced 8x10 negatives for this work.
In addition to her portraiture and documentary photography (which includes projects undertaken after Changing New York), Abbott was a pioneering science photographer. In 1958, she teamed up with a group of MIT physicists to produce the first illustrated physics text. To produce her photographs, she invented much of her own equipment (including the autopole, a telescoping light pole) as well as developing many new photographic and darkroom techniques. To me, one of the most impressive aspects of this work is her ability to create images that are both good teaching tools and beautiful works of art as well. The parabolic mirror image pays homage to her early surrealist friends, which I find particularly playful in this context.
I admire Abbott immensely. She was a success in three very different branches of photography, including one (science photography) that we normally don't think of as art in the traditional sense. Her images, whether portraits, documentary street scenes, or illustrations of the laws of physics, show her strong commitment to realism in photography, a commitment from which she never wavered. She was also what we would today call a feminist, saying in one interview "The world doesn't like independent women, why, I don't know, but I don't care." I am inspired by all of her work, and return to it frequently for sources of inspiration - especially her images of city architecture. Her eye for line and the interplay of light and shadow is wonderful and I know I can learn a great deal from studying her.
I really enjoyed her Changing New York series. I had to look into it more after seeing the couple of images you included in your post. It is not only interesting to see how she captured it but what exactly was being changed at the time.
ReplyDeleteIt is also very interesting that she was an assistant to Man Ray. He was one of the first well-known photographers that I really became interested in. I can definitely see how his work influenced her in different areas.